INT  DA 
MOUNTAIN 
WALLE  0 


^-  -^r  -  \  — 

ujcutd\Roiu  mi|  native  land. 


There  are  tqpse  who  praise  the  poet  who  can  soar  in  starry  spheres, 
flnd  cari  mould  HIS  mystic  phrases  jrorrt  the  wrecks  of  other  years, 

1  would  fyave  my  inspiration.  fresh  from  nature's  operi  hand- 
I  would  sioj  a  simple  sonnet  that  a  child  can  understand. 


There  are  those  wl^o  seek  iri  other  dimes  tl\e  joys  thei)  might 
Mid  the  mountairis  ar\d  the  meadows  o/  tte  land  they  call  (heir  owr 

1  would  seek  the  sliady  carwons  where  a!  r\ight  the  geiUle  dew 
Comes  to  Kiss  the  rose  and  heliotrope  whea  stars  are  all  in  view. 

1  would  walk  the  verdant  valley  where  the  salt  waves  wash  fhe  feet 
Oj  Ihe  Wasatch.Gazi'nj)  upward  where  the  sky  and  mountains  meet, 

Filled  with  'awe  ar\d  admiration.  I  would  kr\eel  upon  Ihe  strand, 
/Ind  lhaak  Heaven  for  this  picture  even.  1  can  understand. 

I  would  stand  amid  these  mountains  with  their  hueless  caps  o/  snow. 

Looking  dowri  the  distant  valley  stretching   far  away  below; 
>ln.d  with  reverential  rapture  thank  my  Maker  for  thisjjrattd, 

Peerless,  priceless  panorama  that  a  child  can  understand. 


u 


TA  H 


Sangre  de  Cristo,  let  me  trace 
The  beauties  of  thy  furrowed  face; 
While  poncha-perfurned  summer  breez 
Makes'  music  in  thine  arboies, 


Copyrigtit,    1895,    by    George    B.    Dodge. 


INTRODUCTORY 


THE  FOLLY  OF  AMERICANS  wno  TRAVEL  ABROAD   BEFORE 
THEY   HAVE  SEEN  THEIR  OWN  COUNTRY. 


ASTERN  newspaper  statisticians  are  proverbially  masters 
of  the  art  of  inaccuracy,  and  their  so-called  statistics  are 
usually  to  be  taken,  like  dreams  or  women's  whims,  by 
contraries.  But  they  are  probably  not  far  wrong  in  their 
every-season  estimate  that  a  hundred  thousand  Americans 
annually  make  the  tour  of  Europe  at  an  average  expense 
of  at  least  a  thousand  dollars  each.  That  is  a  total  of  a  hundred  million 
dollars  a  year  expended  by  new-world  people  in  familiarizing  themselves 
with  old-world  scenes,  while,  as  a  general  thing,  they  are  wholly  unac- 
quainted with  the  infinitely  grander  scenes  on  their  own  side  of  the  Atlantic 
ferry.  In  a  single  day  of  the  recent  season  eight  huge  ocean  steamers  left 
New  York,  bearing  nearly  three  thousand  first-cabin  passengers  for  a  Euro- 
pean summer  tour.  Every  steamship  that  sails  during  the  fashionable 
outing  months  goes  crowded  with  these  too  often  ignorant  and  snobocratic 
American  voyagers  to  foreign  lands  for  recreation  and  pleasure,  that  could 
be  far  more  easily  and  cheaply  found  at  home.  How  many  of  them  have 
ever  seen  the  glories  and  grandeurs,  the  beauties  and  sublimities  of  their 
own  matchless  land  ?  How  many  of  them  know,  how  many  of  them  have 
ever  dreamt,  that  their  own  —  our  own  —  is  incomparably  the  grandest 
continent  on  all  the  globe  ? 

There  is  urgent  need  of  a  constitutional  amendment  prohibiting  any 
untutored  American  citizen  or  citizeness,  redolent  of  pork  corners,  wheat 
gouges,  stock  swindles,  and  "  just-struck-rich-dirt  "-inesses,  from  going 
abroad  to  paralyze  the  cab-drivers  and  coffee-house  waiters  of  effete 
monarchies  with  gilded  republican  airs  until  he  or  she  has  seen  and  learned 
something  of  America.  It  should  require,  as  an  inexorable  condition- 
precedent  for  permission  to  squander  American  gold  and  silver  in  London 
haberdashers'  establishments  and  Parisian  milliners'  shops,  and  to  go  into 


cheap  raptures  —  after  careful  consultation  of  the  guide-books  —  over 
Italian  skies  and  mole-hills,  duck-ponds  and  dilapidated  macaroni  hash- 
eries,  a  certificate  from  the  president  and  general  manager  of  some  such 
great  system  of  American  railway  as  the  Rio  Grande  Western,  Denver  & 
Rio  Grande,  and  Colorado  Midland,  that  the  would-be  foreign  voyager  had 
visited  all  the  wondrous  and  glorious  scenes  along  their  lines.  It  would  be 
an  admirable  educational  measure.  It  would  give  tens  of  thousands  of 
semi-bogus  Americans  —  native-born  aliens  —  some  idea  of  the  grandeur  of 
their  own  country,  and  prevent  them  from  making  the  lavish  displays  of 
ignorance  and  stupidity  with  which  they  now  amuse  or  disgust  the  first 
intelligent  man  or  woman  they  meet  after  setting  foot  on  European  soil. 

It  was  Byron  who,  meeting  one  of  these  typical  American  tourists  in 
Florence,  eagerly  exclaimed  :  •*  Tell  me  of  Niagara  Falls  !  Describe  your 
great  cataract  to  me  !  "  When  the  American  shamefacedly  confessed  he 
had  never  seen  the  cataractic  wonder  of  the  world,  the  poet  abruptly  turned 

on  his  heel  and  left  him,  denouncing  as  "a  d d  fool"  any  man  who, 

without  having  seen  Niagara,  would  come  from  America  to  Europe  to  sham 
ecstacy  over  pigmy  mountains  and  lakes  and  rivers.  And  the  lame  author 
of  "  Childe  Harold  "  was  not  too  severe. 

The  more  one  sees  of  our  majestic  half-world  —  our  continental  American 
republic  —  the  less  patience  he  must  have  with  those  absurd  creatures  who, 
every  year,  flock  by  tens  of  thousands  to  other  lands,  while  they  have  seen 
nothing  and  know  nothing  of  their  own.  Earth  has  no  other  land  like  ours. 
Among  all  the  nationalities  and  realms  of  the  globe,  "  Columbia,  the  Gem 
of  the  Ocean,"  is  peerless,  unrivaled  and  unrivalable,  unapproached 
and  unapproachable.  The  grandest  empires  of  the  old  world,  of 
ancient  or  of  modern  times,  sink  to  petty  provinces  beside  its  vast 
dimensions.  The  whole  possessions  of  Rome,  when  her 
golden  eagles  spread  their  wings  victorious  from  the 
burning  sands  of  Africa  to  the  mist-clad  hills  of  Cale- 
donia, fell  short  of  the  immensity  of  our  new-world 
domain.  Russia,  vastest  of  modern  sovereignties, 
could  be  lost  in  our  half-hemisphere  beyond  the 
power  of  all  the  buzzards  in  Christendom  to 
find  her.  France,  land  of  Napoleon,  at 
the  tread  of  whose  legions  but  three 
quarters  of  a  century  ago  all 
Europe  trembled  as  if 
taken  with  a  Wabash- 
valley  ague,  would 
scarcely  overlap  the 
;^l_—c^  single  Territory  of 
Utah  :  while  Great 


THE   ACROPOLIS   OF    THE    DESERT. 

Britain,  whose  morning  drum-beat  sounds  around  the  globe,  would  hardly 
make  a  fly-speck  on  the  face  of  Texas  or  California. 

Do  other  lands  boast  of  their  great  rivers  ?  We  could  take  up  all  their 
Niles  and  Thameses,  their  yellow  Tibers,  castled  Rhines  and  beautiful  blue 
Danubes  by  their  little  ends,  and  empty  them  into  our  majestic  Mississippis 
and  Missouris,  Columbias  and  Rio  Grandes,  Amazons,  Saskatchewans  and 
De  La  Platas  without  making  rise  enough  to  lift  an  Indiana  flat-boat  off  a 
sandbar.  Do  they  brag  of  their  seas  and  lakes  ?  We  could  spill  all  their 
puny  Caspians  and  Azovs,  Nyanzas  and  Maggiores,  into  our  mighty 
Superiors,  Michigans,  Hurons,  Eries  and  Ontarios,  and  scarce  produce  a 
ripple  on  their  pebbled  brims  to  wash  away  the  eighteen-inch  "  foot-print  on 
the  sands  of  time  "  left  by  the  fairy-like  slipper  of  a  St.  Louis  or  Chicago 
girl  ;  while  in  any  ring,  Marquis  of  Queensbury  rules,  our  Wasatch-walled 
Great  Salt  Lake  could  strip  the  championship  belt  for  mystery  and  majesty 
from  their  long-famed,  Sodom-engulfing,  weird  Dead  Sea.  Do  they  prate 
of  their  romantic  scenery  ?  We  have  a  thousand  jewel-like  lakes  that  would 
make  all  their  vaunted  Comos,  Genevas  and  Killarneys  hide  their  faces  in  a 
veil  of  friendly  fog.  The  rolling  thunder  of  our  Niagara  drowns  out  the 
feeble  murmur  of  all  their  cataracts  ;  while  the  awful  crags  and  canyons  of 
our  Yellowstone  and  Yosemite,  Gunnison,  Arkansas  and  Colorado  ;  the  pris- 
matic glitter  and  dash  of  our  Minnehahas,  Shoshones  and  Ocklawahas  ;  and 
the  lonely  grandeur  of  our  horizon-fenced  prairies,  boundless  oceans  of 
billowy  verdure,  dwarf  to  insipidity  the  most  famous  scenes  of  Switzerland 
and  Italy,  eclipse  the  wonders  and  glories  of  the  Arabian  Nights,  and  defy 
all  the  skill  of  poet's  pen  and  artist's  pencil  to  depict  the  veriest  atom  of 


their  sublimity  and  their  loveliness.  Do  they  prattle  about  their  JEtnas  and 
Vesuviuses  ?  With  our  noses  turning  somersets  of  ineffable  contempt  clear 
over  our  heads,  we  thunder  forth  our  Cotopaxis,  Popocatapetls,  Chimbora- 
zos  and  a  score  of  other  jawbreakers  whose  very  names  alone  are  too  huge 
for  common  tongues.  (It  is  true  that  some  of  these  specimens  of  national 
prodigiousness  do  not  just  exactly  belong  to  us  yet  ;  but  they  belong  to  our 
next-door  neighbors,  who  are  not  as  strong  as  we  are,  and  to  the  gloriously 
expansive  spirit  of  Yankee  progress,  where  or  what  is  the  difference  ?)  Do 
other  lands  and  nations  talk  of  their  mines  of  jewels  and  gold  ?  We  answer 
with  the  exhaustless  bonanzas  of  California,  Colorado,  Montana,  Idaho  and 
Utah,  where  mountains  of  gold  and  silver  ore  challenge  the  skies,  and  where 
the  ceaseless  thunder  of  the  world's  greatest  bullion-mills  resounds  in  the 
yet  warm  lair  of  the  Rocky  Mountain  grizzly  bear.  Do  they  rave  of  the 
harvest  fields  of  Germany  and  Britain,  and  the  vine-clad  hills  of  France  ? 
We  show  them  half  a  hemisphere,  with  soils  and  climates  as  varied  as  the 
tastes  of  men,  and  with  capacities  for  production  as  boundless  as  the 
needs  of  men  ;  yielding  everything,  cereal,  vegetable,  animal,  textile 
and  mineral,  agricultural,  horticultural,  geological,  zoological, 
pomological,  piscatorial,  and  ornithological,  ovine,  bovine,  capri- 
cornine  and  equine,  that  all  the  wants  of  all  the  races, 
tribes,  kindreds  and  tongues  of  earth  can  ever  require.  The 
sun  in  heaven,  in  all  his  grand  rounds  since  "  the  eve- 
ning and  the  morning  were  the  first  day,"  never  looked 
down  on  a  more  magnificent  domain  —  a  fresh  and 
glorious  half-world,  grand  in  all  its  pro- 
portions, and  endlessly  diversified,  rich 
and  gorgeous  in  all  its  adornments,  resting 
like  a  vast  emerald  breastpin  upon  the 
bosom  of  four  great  oceans.  It  is  the 
broadest  land  ever  given  to  any  people, 
the  grandest  and  most  beautiful,  the  most 
varied  in  its  productions,  and  the  most 
unlimited  in  its  capabilities,  and  its  future. 
Other  lands  surpass  it  only  in  age  and 
ruins.  Time,  if  we  wait  long  enough,  will 
remedy  the  deficiency  in  age  ;  and  we  are  already  able  to 
show  some  rather  picturesque,  though  by  no  means  majestic, 
ruins  after  every  presidential  election. 


THE    GARB   0P   THE    HILLS. 


OO  visit  the  hills  in  the  springtime, 

When  the  little  buds  burst  on  the  trees, 
And  the  perfume  of  pinon  and  wild  flowers 

Is  borne  on  the  breath  of  the  breeze, 
When  the  rivulets  leap  from  the  snowlands, 

As  down  toward  the  valley  they  sing, 
To  gladden  the  rose-laden   low-lands  — 

Go  visit  the  hills  in  the  spring  ! 

And  then,  when  the  sum,rrier  is  over, 

And  the  dead   leaves  are  strewn  o'er  the  land, 
When  the  blossoms  have  dropped  from  the  clover, 

A  garment  more  gorgeous  and  grand 
Is  worn  by  the  hills.     True,  the  verdure, 

TJ^e  green  and  the  freshness  of  spring 
Have  changed — the  flowers  have  faded  — 

The  song-birds  are  ceasing  to  sing, 

But  look  !    in  the  morn,  when  the  sunlight 

First  flashes  its  rays  o'er  the  range, 
Ever  changing  anon  till  the  wan   light 

Of  evening  is  on  —  note  each  change  — 
Blends  the  fire  and  flam.e  of  the  oak  tree 

With  the  gold  of  the  aspen  so  tall  ; 
All  the  radiant  rays  of  the  rainbow 

P\re  worn  by  the  hills  in  the  fall, 


II. 
STILL    INTRODUCTORY 


A  GENTLE  RAP  AT  THE  TOO-PREVALENT  AMERICAN 
IGNORANCE  OF  AMERICA. 


F  ALL  this  magnificent,  more  than  imperial  domain,  one  of 
the  fairest  garden  spots  is  Utah.  Yes,  gentle  or  ungentle 
reader,  as  the  case  may  be,  you  deciphered  it  aright  —  the 
word  is  Utah.  You  do  not  know  where  it  is?  That  is 
not  surprising.  There  is  nothing  of  which  the  average 
intelligent  American  knows  less  than  he  does  of  the 
geography  of  his  own  country.  Utah  ?  You  never  heard  of  it  except  as  a 
wild,  far-away  spot  in  a  dismal  wilderness,  where  every  shrub  has  a  cactus 
thorn  and  conceals  a  stinging  reptile,  and  where  the  very  waters  heave  up 
brimstone,  pitch  and  ashes  —  a  sort  of  cross  between  Hades  and  the  Great 
Sahara,  the  fitting  home  of  a  horde  of  semi-savage  fanatics  known  as  Mor- 
mons ?  Very  likely.  Your  ignorance  is  not  exceptional.  Even  educated 
Americans  are  phenomenal  in  the  profundity  and  variety  of  what  they  do 
not  know  in  regard  to  every  region  and  characteristic  of  their  native  land 
beyond  the  range  of  their  own  chimneys'  smoke.  They  laugh  at  foreigners 
for  mixing  up  New  York  and  San  Francisco,  and  expecting  to  find  buffaloes 
and  warwhooping  Indians  in  the  suburbs  of  Cincinnati  and  Chicago  ;  while, 
in  nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine  cases  out  of  every  possible  thousand,  they 
show  little  greater  knowledge  than  the  more  excusable  blunderers  they 
deride. 

At  a  dinner  given  in  New  Orleans,  a  few  years  ago,  to  a  Dakota  man,  a 
lady  prominent  in  Crescent  City  society  said  to  the  guest  of  the  occasion  : 
"I  understand,  sir,  you  live  in  Dakota.  You  probably  know  a  friend  of 
mine,  Mr.  William  Jones,  out  there?"  The  Dakotan  turned  to  see  if  she  was 
not  simply  guying  him  ;  but,  perceiving  that  she  was  in  earnest,  replied  : 
"  In  what  part  of  Dakota,  madam,  does  your  acquaintance  live  ? "  •'  I  think,'' 
she  answered,  "in  a  little  place  called  Yankton.  Isn't  there  a  town  of  that 
name  out  there?"  "Yes,  madam,"  was  the  grave  rejoinder  ;  "but  are  you 


aware  that,  from  my  home  on  Devil's  Lake,  Dakota,  to  Yankton,  where  you 
think  your  friend,  Mr.  Jones,  resides,  by  the  shortest  travelable  route,  is 
about  eight  hundred  miles,  or  just  one  hundred  and  fifteen  miles  less  than 
from  New  Orleans  to  Chicago?"  The  statement,  at  that  time,  was  abso- 
lutely true,  but  the  man  who  made  it  was  promptly  set  down  by  every  guest 
at  the  table,  as  the  worst  specimen  of  wild-western  Munchausenism  that  had 
ever  appeared  in  New  Orleans. 

So,  esteemed  madam,  miss  or  sir,  if  ignorance,  like  misery,  loved  company, 
you  would  have  abundance  of  it,  even  among  our  most  cultivated  people. 
Your  lack  of  knowledge  as  to  Utah  is  not  unparalleled,  but  it  will  hereafter 
be  unpardonable,  or  this  brief  dissertation  will  have  failed  in  its  mission. 
A  few  moments  of  your  valuable  time  and  attention  and  you  will  know  con- 
siderably more  than  you  do,  and  still  be  just  as  handsome  as  you  are. 

A  theme  so  vast  and  varied,  so  rich  and  beautiful,  appropriately  begins  a 
new  chapter. 


III. 

UTAH. 


A  BRIEF  GENERAL  OUTLINE,  GEOGRAPHICAL,  SCENIC  AND 
RESOURCEFUL,  OF  A  WONDERFUL  REGION. 


TAH  extends  from  37°  to  42°  North  latitude,  and  from  32° 
to  37°  West  longitude,  and  is  an  almost  exact  square,  three 
hundred  miles  each  way.  It  has  an  area  of  87,750  square 
miles,  or  52,601,600  acres  ;  of  which  2,780  square  miles,  or 
1,776,200  acres,  are  water.  It  is  11,420  square  miles,  or 
7,308,800  acres,  larger  than  Maine,  New  Hampshire,  Vermont, 
Massachusetts,  Rhode  Island,  Connecticut,  New  Jersey  and 
Delaware,  all  combined  ;  and  there  is  no  region  of  equal  area  on 
the  globe,  that  overflows  with  more  abounding  and  diversified  riches  of 
resource  and  possibility. 

Utah  was  first  settled  by  a  detachment  of  Mormons,  under  the  leadership 
of  Brigham  Young,  in  July,  1847  I  and  there  is  no  stronger  argument  in 
favor  of  the  Mormon  claim  to  divine  revelations  and  inspirations,  than  the 
fact  that  they  should  have  been  led  through  nearly  three  thousand  miles  of 
unexplored  wilderness,  infested  at  every  step  by  hostile  savages,  to  such  a 
"  Land  of  Promise,"  where  every  promise  finds  so  glorious  fulfillment. 
Guided  by  the  Jehovah-swayed  "  pillar  of  cloud  by  day,  and  pillar  of  fire 
by  night,"  Israel  of  old  wandered  forty  years  in  search  of  a  "promised 
land  "  that  would  hardly  make  a  cow-lot  in  Utah. 

Lift  all  New  England  and  New  York  bodily  a  mile  above  the  level  of  the 
sea.  Add  five  thousand  feet  to  the  height  of  Mount  Washington,  and  seven 
thousand  to  that  of  Mount  Mitchell  Throw  in  dozens  of  other  peaks  fully 
as  high,  all  punching  holes  in  the  sky  with  their  snowy  crowns.  Pile  up, 
everywhere,  hundreds  on  hundreds  of  mountains  from  ten  to  fourteen  thou- 
sand feet  high.  Exaggerate  fifty-fold  all  the  wild  notches  and  gorges  and 
glens  of  eastern  America,  and  multiply  them  by  scores.  Send  cataracts  and 
cascades  leaping  and  foaming  down  a  thousand  dizzy  precipice  channels. 
Toss  in,  promiscuously,  parks  larger  than  whole  States  in  the  tame,  small- 

14 


notioned  east;  and  gardens  of  giant  statuary  —  statues  of  gods  and  genii 
and  gnomes,  Titans,  Centaurs,  and  un-named  monsters,  thousands  of  feet 
high  —  hewn  by  ages  on  ages  of  winds  and  waves  and  whirling  waters. 
Cap  all  the  mountain-tops  with  everlasting  ice  and  snow,  and  clothe  their 
shaggy  sides  with  waving  forests  of  valuable  timber.  Fill  all  the  valleys  to 
the  mountains'  feet  with  orchards  and  gardens,  vineyards  and  grain-fields, 
bending  beneath  the  burdens  of  their  own  magnificent  fruitage  ;  and  dot  the 
horizon-bounded  pasture-lands  with  flocks  and  herds,  waist-deep  in  the  very 
wantonness  of  plenty.  Underlay  the  whole  vast  area  with  gold  and  silver, 
zinc,  copper,  lead  and  iron  ores  ;  marble  of  a  hundred  hues  ;  anthracite, 
bituminous  and  cannel  coal  ;  salt,  sulphur,  soda,  lime  and  gypsum  ;  and 
nearly  every  other  metal  and  mineral  in  human  use.  Through  countless 
wondrous  canyons,  pour  mighty  rivers  with  water-power  enough  to  run  all 
the  world's  machinery.  Smite  the  rock-ribbed  laboratories  of  Omnipotence, 
and  let  unnumbered  healing  floods  gush  forth,  rich  in  miracle-working  virtues 
for  the  alleviation  of  many  of  the  sorest  "  ills  that  flesh  is  heir  to."  As  the 
dazzling  bosom-jewel  of  the  whole  transcendent  scene,  spread  out  the 
twenty-five  hundred  square  miles  of  that  majestic  and  mysterious  lake, 
whose  waters  hold  in  solution  wealth  enough  to  pay  all  the  national  debts 
of  the  world,  and  leave  a  fortune  for  every  man,  woman  and  child  from  Cape 
Cod  to  Yuba  Dam.  And  over  all  throw  the  glory  of  a  climate  unsurpassed 
under  heaven  since  sin  and  death  climbed  into  Eden,  and  the  translucent 
splendor  of  skies  more  radiantly  sapphirean  than  ever  bent  their  crystal 
arches  above  the  far-famed,  beggar-hemmed  and  flea-girt  Bay  of  Naples,  or 
the  Lake  of  Como,  on  whose  enchanted  shores  lay  the  bogus  ranch  of  that 
glib-tongued  bunco-steerer,  Claude  Melnotte  —  And  —  you  have  a  poor,  faint, 
puny  approximation  to  an  idea  of  Utah  ! 

It  is  a  land  where  mountains  of  gold  and  silver  ore,  that  runs  from  fifty 
to  five  thousand  dollars  to  the  ton,  wall  in  valleys  that  yield  from  sixty  to 
eighty  bushels  of  wheat,  from  seventy-five  to  a  hundred  bushels  of  oats, 
and  from  five  hundred  to  nine  hundred  bushels  of  potatoes,  to  the  acre.  It 
is  a  land  where  every  man  makes  his  own  rain,  and  the  crops  never  fail  ; 
where  the  rewards  of  industry  are  as  sure  as  the  decrees  of  God  ;  where 
wonder  treads  on  beauty's  heels,  and  riches  rush  to  meet  the  earnest  seeker. 
Its  resources  are  as  boundless  as  its  limits,  and  as  varied  as  the  ever- 
changing  hues  that  bathe  its  sunsets  in  prismatic  splendors.  Here  is 
Ute-opia  indeed  ! 

What  is  there  that  the  imagination  of  man  can  conceive,  or  his  eye,  heart, 
soul,  stomach  or  pocket  can  desire,  that  Utah  does  not  yield,  or  cannot 
offer  ?  Is  it  scenery  or  climate  ?  Is  it  health  or  wealth,  fertile  farms, 
bonanza  mines,  or  lovely  homes  ?  Is  it  opportunities  for  profitable  invest- 
ments, or  openings  for  all  varieties  of  labor  and  of  enterprise  ? 

Let  a  fresh  chapter  begin  the  brief  reply. 


S  IB  paini  a  picture  with  a^  pencil  of  rny  own; 
al!  have  no  Stand  Jo  Ijelp  %  1  stiall  paint  it  all  alone: 
fancy  it  lie/ore.  Trie  and  toy  hopeful  rieartjiows  faint 
!  coaiernplale  %  jrandetir  of  the  picture  1  would  paint. 


atioul  the  lini  ttie  landing  limpid 
Wtyise  Tippl&s  seemlo  shiver  as  ftey  jlide-ai\djlow 
0|  tl\e  waves  fta!  beat  llje  boulders  W  are  strewn  upon  tj]e  sl 
You  will  recognize  ftc  river  ii\  trje  Canyon  of  IfjE 

Wr\en  1  write  ajiDul  %  n\owiiair\s  wift  their  rieaos  solugli  ani3\oar, 
Of  t^e  clijfs  and  craggy  canyons  "v%re  fe  waters  tuslt  and  roar, 

¥l\eii  1  speaK  about  %  walls  that  use  so\up]  on  e'fJier 
You.  will  teco^ijzE  \\° 


God'  was  uood  ta  mate  fye  mourilains,  the  valleys  aijjfj|e  l{ill§ 
Put  the  rose  upon.l\e  cactus  the  Tipple  onitje  fills; 

Bxi]  ij  I  j]ad  all  t¥  v/Qfd§  of  alt  the  "worlds  almy 
1  couldn't  paint  a  picture  «f  t^e  Canyon  ojt^e  Grand 


IV. 


CLIMATE    AND    HEALTH 


UTAH   AS  ONE  OF   THE  WORLD'S   GRANDEST   SANITARIUMS 
SOME  NOVEL  AND  STRIKING  FACTS. 


"  We  believe  it  is  a  duty  to  live  past  seventy."  — 


grandeur    and    loveliness    of    Utah 
scenery  have   already  been  touched 
interwoven    with    its 
mines  and  meadows,  fields,  forests,  lakes, 
vajleys,  and  every  other  feature  and  interest, 
that  they  will  find  frequent  mention  hereafter. 
It  is  a  tourist's  paradise,  a  true  holy  land  of 
sight-seers  and   lovers  of    nature    in   her  sub- 
limest  and  most  entrancing  moods,  a  realm  of 
beauty  and  a  joy  forever  to  the   artist  soul. 
What  of  its  climate  and  healthfnlness  ? 

Climate  is  not  regulated  by  latitude.  Ocean  cur- 
rents and  altitude  are  potent  factors  in  it.  The 
snows  of  untold  ages  lie  unmelted  on  the  lofty  peaks 
of  the  Cordilleras  in  Mexico,  the  Andes  in  South 
America,  and  the  Himalayas  in  Hindostan.  Alaska, 
in  the  latitude  of  Greenland,  has  a  climate  little 
more  rigorous  than  that  of  Ohio.  Washington  and  Oregon,  in 

18 


the  latitude  of  hard-frozen  Maine  and  blizzardy  Dakota,  where  it  is  mid- 
winter seven  months  of  the  year,  and  very  late  in  the  fall  the  other  five, 
bask  in  the  sunny  mildness  of  Virginia  and  Carolina  ;  and  California,  on  the 
same  parallels  with  Nebraska,  Kansas  and  Oklahoma,  raises  oranges, 
bananas,  pine-apples,  figs,  lemons  and  pomegranates.  Utah,  in  the  latitude 
of  Missouri,  where  the  mercury  often  runs  the  whole  length  of  the  ther- 
mometer in  twenty-four  hours,  enjoys  a  climate  as  balmy  and  as  equable  as 
the  airs  that  breathe  over  Araby  the  Blest.  For  fourteen  years  the  mean 
temperature  in  Salt  Lake  City  was  about  fifty-two  degrees,  the  average 
maximum  being  ninety-seven  degrees,  the  average  minimum  minus  one, 
and  the  mean  daily  range  of  the  mercury  but  twenty  degrees.  Cotton 
grows  luxuriantly  in  the  southern  part  of  the  territory,  and  all  the  semi- 
tropical  fruits  flourish  everywhere  within  its  borders  ;  and  yet  there  is  not  a 
day  in  the  year  when  one  cannot,  if  he  will,  wallow  in  a  snowdrift  fifty  feet 
deep,  or  seat  himself  on  an  iceberg  a  hundred  yards  square,  by  climbing  a 
few  miles  up  a  mountain-side.  During  the  month  of  August,  1891,  the 
whole  eastern  and  southern  portion  of  the  United  States,  and  even  the 
vauntedly  paradisiacal  Northwest,  sweltered  and  seethed  with  torrid  heat. 
Apples  baked  on  the  trees  around  Chicago,  that  brazenly  proclaims  itself 
"  the  great  lake-side  summer  resort  of  North  America."  People  died  of 
sunstrokes  and  calorical  prostrations  from  Winnepisseogee  to  Corpus  Christi 
—  that  is,  from  Maine  to  Texas.  Even  in  the  alleged  "  glorious  summer 
climate  "  of  Minnesota  and  Dakota,  the  thermometers  boiled  over  with  a 
hundred  and  ten  to  a  hundred  and  fifteen  degrees  of  hideous  hotness  in  the 
shade.  Milwaukee  refrigerators  turned  to  steam-boilers  ;  pop-corn  popped 
instead  of  sprouting  in  the  Iowa  and  Missouri  hills,  and  a  universal  wail  of 
sweaty  anguish  went  up  to  skies  of  red-hot  brass  from  the  whole  wretched 
land  and  people.  And,  in  all  the  time,  there  was  not  a  night  that  Salt  Lake 
City  people  did  not  sleep  under  blankets,  and  not  a  day  when  they  could 
not  see  the  huge  masses  of  snow  on  the  Wasatch  Mountains  glistening 
white  and  cold  in  the  August  sunshine  ;  while,  at  the  base  of  the  mountains, 
which  slope  down  almost  into  the  eastern  edge  of  the  city,  the  whole  earth 
was  hidden  in  the  foliage  and  fruit  and  flowers  of  orchards  and  vineyards 
and  gardens.  Low  latitude  gives  heat,  and  high  altitude  gives  cold  ;  so 
every  fellow  can  mix  his  own  climate  and  weather  to  suit  himself.  Here,  as 
nearly  as  anywhere  else  in  the  temperate  zone,  might  be  realized  that 
boyish  ideal  of  a  home  :  A  tall,  glacier-crested  mountain  in  a  tropical 
region.  At  its  base,  plantations  of  sugar,  coffee,  rice,  indigo,  and  spices  ; 
orange,  palm  and  mango  groves  ;  and  forests  of  mahogany,  ebony  and  rose- 
wood, with  myriads  of  gorgeous-plumaged  parrots,  toucans  and  macaws 
flitting  like  winged  bits  of  rainbows  among  their  leafy  boughs.  Midway  up 
the  sloping  side,  at  an  elevation  of  eight  or  ten  thousand  feet,  fields  of  corn, 
wheat,  oats  and  barley ;  orchards  of  apples,  pears,  plums  and  cherries  ; 


meadows  of  honey- scented  clover, 
the  hum  of  bees,  the  lowing  of 
cattle,  bubbling  springs,  coveys  of 
quails,  and  cooing  doves.  And  at 
the  summit  a  mighty  storehouse  of 
everlasting  snow  and  ice  to  cool  the 
juleps  and  tequilla.  So  that,  with  a 
tiny  inclined  railroad  ten  or  fifteen 
miles  long,  one  could  slide  through 
all  climates  and  seasons,  from  per- 
petual summer  to  eternal  winter  and 
back  again,  in  half  an  hour,  in  any 
day  of  all  the  year.  In  Utah  the 
torrid  feature  alone  would  be  lacking 
in  this  grand  climatic  climacteric  — 
this  having,  like  death,  "all  seasons 
for  one's  own." 

Weather-bureau  statistics  show 
that  the  sun  shines  all  day  over 
three  hundred  days  in  every  year  in 
Utah,  and  there  are  few  of  the  re- 
maining days  in  which  it  does  not 
brighten  part  of  the  hours.  There 
are  but  two  places  in  the  United 
States,  El  Paso  and  Santa  Fe,  where 
observation  shows  less  humidity  in 
the  atmosphere  than  at  Salt  Lake 
City.  The  air  is  so  dry  and  pure, 
that  the  carcasses  of  dead  animals 
do  not  putrefy ;  they  simply  dry  up 
without  offensive  odor.  So  crystal- 
line is  the  clearness  of  the  wonderful 
atmosphere,  that  it  is  impossible  for 
eyes  accustomed  to  less  favored  re- 
gions to  form  any  correct  estimate  of 
distances  out  here.  No  stranger  to 
this  ethereal  purity  can  realize  that 
it  is  more  than  a  mile  or  two  from 
the  Temple  Square  in  Salt  Lake  Chy 


to  the  summits  of  the  Wasatch  Moun- 
tains, and  yet  they  are  twenty  long 
miles  away.  No  eye,  inured  to  the 
atmospheric  murkiness  of  New  York 
or  Chicago,  can  make  the  strip  of 
blue-green  water  between  Lake  Park 
bathing-beach  and  Antelope  Island  in 
Great  Salt  Lake  seem  wider  than  the 
Upper  Hudson  or  Ohio  River  ;  though 
it  would  take  a  nine-mile  pull  to  cross 
it  at  its  narrowest  place.  With  its 
marvelous  commingling  of  salt-sea  air 
and  mountain  ozone,  with  its  highness 
and  dryness,  with  an  atmosphere  as 
soft  and  pure  as  that  which  fanned  the 
cheek  of  sinlessness  in  primeval  para- 
dise, Utah  is  one  of  the  world's  great 
natural  sanitariums.  Catarrh,  hay- 
fever  and  asthma  vanish  at  once 
beneath  its  balmy  influence.  Even 
tubercular  consumption,  in  all  it's  ear- 
lier stages,  finds  sure  relief  and  cure. 
From  the  strange,  Deity-wrought 
alchemies  of  the  mountain  sides  all 
over  the  territory  burst  forth  magical 
fountains  of  healing  for  invalids  of 
almost  every  class.  Nearly  every 
variety  of  medicinal  waters  known  to 
humanity  is  found  somewhere  in 
this  pharmacopeian  wonderland.  Hot 
Springs,  that  possess  all  the  virtues  of 
those  in  Arkansas,  pour  hissing  and 
steaming  from  the  cliffs  at  Ogden, 
Salt  Lake  City,  Castilla  and  a  score  of 
other  places.  Lithia  Springs,  as  potent 
as  those  of  Carlsbad  or  Homburg,  and 
sulphur  springs  of  every  kind  —  white, 
red,  black,  blue  and  yellow,  hot  and 
cold  —  as  well  as  soda,  magnesia,  alum, 


_, 


and  all  the  countless  species  of  chalybeate  waters.  Great  Salt  Lake  itself 
is  a  twenty-five-hundred-square-miles  Bethesda  Pool,  where  no  angel's  wing 
is  needed  to  stir  the  healing  virtues. 

The  sick  and  enfeebled  of  every  region  may  here  find  some  specific, 
compounded  by  the  Great  Physician's  own  all-wise  hand,  for  their  relief  or 
cure.  Hundreds,  who  first  came  to  Utah,  by  prescription  of  their  doctors, 
after  having  tried  Arkansas,  Colorado  and  New  Mexico,  scarcely  hoping  to 
find  even  temporary  alleviation  of  the  tortures  of  disease,  now  live  in 
vigorous  rejuvenation  to  sound  the  praises  of  the  matchless  Utah-land, 
which  is  destined  to  become  one  of  the  grandest  health-resort  regions  of 
the  world. 

What  is  the  one  infallible  test  of  the  invigorating  qualities  of  climate, 
atmosphere,  and  general  conditions  ?  Abundance  of  children  and  old  people; 
and  nowhere  in  America  do  both  more  plenteously  abound  than  Utah.  The 
old-time  Mormon  families  of  twenty,  forty,  sixty  and,  in  some  instances,  over 
seventy  children  each,  proclaim  in  trumpet  tones  the  sturdy  vigor  and  health- 
fulness  of  the  race  and  region.  Pleasant  Grove,  on  the  Rio  Grande  Western 
Railway,  with  a  total  population  of  twenty-three  hundred,  has  eight  hundred 
and  sixty-two  school  children,  and  at  least  four  hundred  more  under  the 
school-going  age  ;  and  Ephraim,  with  twenty-two  hundred  population,  has 
over  eight  hundred  school  children,  and  three  hundred  and  seventy-eight  of 
younger  growth.  Salt  Lake  City  is  the  only  place  of  fifty  thousand  people 
in  the  United  States,  if  not  in  the  world,  where  baby-wagons  are  imported 
by  the  train-load,  and  where  they  have  the  right-of-way  over  even  the 
electric  cars. 

And  "extremes  meet,"  for  old  people  swarm  everywhere.  A  quick-witted 
and  nimble-footed  old  lady  of  eighty-three  recently  said  to  a  newspaper 
correspondent  :  "  We  Mormons  believe  it  is  a  duty  to  live  past  seventy  ;  " 
and  hosts  of  them  discharge  the  "duty"  without  half  trying.  "  Old  Folks' 
Day  "  is  a  Utah  Mormon  institution,  which  might  well  be  made  national  in 
its  scope  and  observance.  It  was  established  by  Bishop  Hunter,  of  the  Mor- 
mon Church,  who  died  at  the  age  of  ninety  years.  It  comes  on  the  twenty- 
second  of  June,  and  is  observed  as  a  general  holiday.  An  excursion  is  given 
to  people  of  seventy  years  and  upwards,  winding  up  with  a  banquet,  a 
dance,  and  a  generous  distribution  of  presents.  In  1887,  when  Salt  Lake 
City  had  but  about  thirty  thousand  population,  she  sent  seven  hundred  and 
fifty  of  these  ancient  jollifiers,  over  the  Rio  Grande  Western  Railway,  to 
Ogden.  Of  the  number,  a  hundred  and  twelve  ranged  in  age  from  eighty 
to  ninety-seven.  A  seventy-year-old  papa,  trundling  a  baby-chariot,  with 
the  springy  tread  of  a  young  game-rooster,  is  no  uncommon  sight  on  city 
street  or  country  road. 

Health,  vigor,  all  glories  of  air,  and  climate,  and  human  robustitude  — 
Utah  has  them,  and  to  spare. 

22 


UTAH'S  BEST  CROP 


V. 


AGRICULTURAL  AND    PASTORAL. 


THE  MARVELOUS  FERTILITY  OF  UTAH  SOIL  —  SOME 
ASTONISHING  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


O   PROPERLY    constituted   man    could   ever   deliberately 
aspire  to  win  fame  as  a  successor  of  Ananias.     And  yet 
he,  who  sets  out  to  tell  the  simplest, 
unsandpapered     and     unvarnished 
truths    in    regard    to    Utah,    as   a 
farmer-land,     a     home-land,     fore- 
dooms   himself    to    go    galloping 
clown   the   crookedest    byways    of 
public  estimation,  as  a  compeer  of 
Sapphira's  luckless  spouse,  and  all 
the  other  puissant  liars  of  ancient 
and  modern  days.     But  Utah  truth 
is  mighty,  and  must  be  told  —  even  though  he  who  tells 
it  finds  himself  nailed  by  the  ears  to  the  pillory-posts 
of  popular  misjudgment,  as  a  marvel  of  monumental 
mendacity. 

One  may  have  seen  the  valley  of  the  Nile,  for  ages 
"the  granary  of  the  world."  He  may  have  roamed  amid 
the  rich  plantations  of  the  Caribbean  shores,  where  the  wondrous 
soil  yields  almost  spontaneously  every  grain,  grass,  vegetable, 
fruit  and  fabric  necessary  for  human  sustenance  and  luxury. 
He  may  have  roamed  delighted  over  the  sea  islands  of  Georgia 
and  Carolina,  and  the  romance-haunted  Teche  region  of  Louisiana,  "the 
land  of  Evangeline,"  where  nature  riots  in  wild  luxuriance  of  production. 
He  may  have  traversed  the  fertile  Scioto  Valley,  the  paradise  of  Ohio  ;  and 
the  far-famed  Red  River  Valley  of  Dakota,  with  its  mighty  wheat-fields 
stretching  away  till,  all  around,  the  blue  sky  meets  the  heads  of  golden  grain. 
He  may  have  grown  familiar  with  all  the  so-called  garden-spots  of  earth  : 


24 


but  there  are  still  amazements  for  him  —  in  Utah.  On  all  the  beauteous,  pen- 
dent globe,  no  fairer,  richer  realm  unfolds  itself  to  tempt  the  angels  down. 
No  mightier  treasure-houses  of  royal  ore  rear  their  proud  heads  heavenward 
in  any  land  or  zone.  No  more  overflowingly  bounteous,  golden  grainfields 
or  heavier-laden  vines  and  fruit-trees  ever  gladdened  the  heart  and  pocket 
of  sun-browned  husbandman  with  hundred-fold  harvests.  No  greener 
pastures  ever  feasted  the  frolicsome  mule-colt,  or  fatted  the  festive  gentle- 
man-calf. 

Here,  Isaiah's  millennial  rhapsody  of  prediction  finds  literal  fulfillment. 
The  wilderness  and  the  solitary  place  have  been  made  glad,  and  the  desert 
does  rejoice  and  blossom  as  a  rose.  Where  no  water  is,  Utah  soil  is  the 
picture  of  desolation.  Nothing  grows  but  cactus,  grease  weed,  prairie  dogs 
and  Jack-rabbits.  Turn  on  the  water  and  a  garden  blooms.  You  touch  the 
water  button,  and  God  and  nature  do  the  rest  —  and  do  it  gloriously.  All 
farming  is  by  irrigation,  and  where  every  farmer  makes  his  own  season  and 
controls  his  own  rain,  crop  failures  are  unknown.  There  has  never  been  one 
in  Utah.  No  rain  on  the  new  mown  hay,  no  drouth  when  the  grain  heads 
are  filling.  Water  in  abundance  just  when  and  where  it  is  needed,  and  never 
and  nowhere  else.  The  soil  is  inexhaustible.  No  artificial  fertilization  has 
ever  been  used.  Manure  heaps  are  burned.  Fields  in  the  Salt  Lake  valley 
that  have  been  cropped  incessantly  for  forty  years  yield  annually  from  fifty 
to  seventy-five  bushels  of  wheat,  from  six  to  ten  tons  of  Lucerne  clover  and 
from  five  hundred  to  nine  hundred  bushels  of  potatoes  to  the  acre,  and  every- 
thing else  in  proportion. 

The  official  figures  of  the  National  Department  of  Agriculture  show  that 
the  average  wheat  crop  of  the  country  is  about  twelve  bushels  to  the  acre, 
and  that  in  the  much-vaunted  grain  belt  of  Dakota  it  is  scarcely  thirteen 
bushels  to  the  acre.  In  Utah  sixty  to  seventy  bushels  to  the  acre  is  an 
ordinary  yield.  In  1889,  the  "American  Agriculturist"  prize  for  the  largest 
yield  of  wheat  to  the  acre  in  the  United  States  was  awarded  to  William 
Gibby,  whose  farm  is  a  short  distance  south  of  Salt  Lake  City.  His  crop, 
raised  on  measured  ground  and  every  detail  attested  by  reliable  witnesses, 
was  eighty-four  bushels  and  ten  pounds  to  the  acre.  John  H.  White,  four 
miles  north  of  Salt  Lake  City,  in  1890,  raised  on  twenty  acres  of  land  nine- 
teen hundred  and  twenty  bushels  of  oats,  or  ninety-six  bushels  to  the  acre. 
On  the  same  land,  the  year  before,  he  raised  one  hundred  and  four  bushels 
to  the  acre.  W.  D.  Major,  near  Bountiful,  a  little  place  that  is  certainly 
well  named,  north  of  Salt  Lake  City,  in  1890,  raised  ninety  bushels  of  barley 
to  the  acre.  Utah  does  not  claim  to  be  a  corn  country,  because  many  other 
crops  are  so  much  more  profitable,  but  W.  D.  Major  has  recently  raised  fifty 
bushels  of  white  flint  corn  to  the  acre  ;  and  Bailey  &  Son,  sixty  bushels  of 
yellow  corn  to  the  acre.  In  1890,  Thomas  Farrar,  near  Green  River  Station 
on  the  Rio  Grande  Western  Railway,  raised  a  hundred  and  twelve  bushels 

25 


to  the  acre.  Richard  Carlisle,  of  Mill  Creek,  six  miles  south  of  Salt  Lake 
City,  in  1890,  with  irrigation  from  an  artesian  well,  raised  nine  hundred  and 
forty-seven  bushels  of  potatoes  to  the  acre,  and  sold  them  at  eighty  cents  a 
bushel,  realizing  in  cash  $767.60  an  acre  for  one  year's  crop.  Mr.  Culmer, 
at  Pleasant  Grove,  thirty  miles  south  of  Salt  Lake  City,  cleared  $1,200  an 
acre  on  strawberries  in  a  single  season.  John  H.  White,  whose  hundred-and- 
four-bushels-to-the-acre  oats  crop  has  already  been  mentioned,  in  1890  cut 
three  crops  of  alfalfa  or  Lucerne  clover  from  his  meadow,  amounting  to 
seven  tons  to  the  acre.  He  sold  it  in  the  Salt  Lake  market  at  fourteen 
dollars  a  ton,  making  ninety-eight  dollars  an  acre  in  cash  for  one  season's 
hay  crop.  Four  crops  of  alfalfa  are  frequently  cut  in  a  season,  and  from 
seven  to  ten  tons  is  a  common  yield. 

But  why  multiply  such  instances  ?  Every  one  of  those  given  is  officially 
attested  by  the  Salt  Lake  City  Chamber  of  Commerce,  and  volumes  might 
be  filled  with  similar  illustrations  of  the  fiction-surpassing  fertility  of  this 
wonderland  of  husbandry.  Call  the  roll  of  products  and  there  is  none  that 
can  be  raised  in  the  temperate  zone  which  does  not  reach  perfection  here. 
Earth  is  absolutely  wanton  in  fecundity.  Rye  yields  an  average  of  from 
sixty  to  seventy  bushels  to  the  acre  ;  turnips,  from  four  hundred  to  six 
hundred  bushels  ;  carrots,  from  seven  hundred  to  a  thousand  bushels  ;  apri- 
cots, three  hundred  and  fifty  to  five  hundred  bushels  ;  peaches,  from  five 
hundred  to  seven  hundred  bushels  ;  apples,  four  hundred  and  fifty  to  six 
hundred  bushels  ;  pears,  five  hundred  bushels  ;  plums,  from  three  hundred 
to  four  hundred  bushels  ;  blackberries,  raspberries,  currants  and  gooseber- 
ries, from  three  hundred  to  three  hundred  and  fifty  bushels  to  the  acre,  and 
everything  else  in  like  profusion.  Cherries  grow  wild  in  great  abundance. 
Hops  are  indigenous  to  the  soil.  Nectarines  flourish  everywhere,  and  figs 
are  raised  in  the  southern  valleys.  Cotton  grows  luxuriantly  in  the  lower 
counties,  and  a  cotton  mill  established  by  the  Mormons  at  Washington  has 
long  been  in  successful  operation.  It  uses  about  75,000  pounds  of 
cotton  yearly  and  manufactures  good  domestics. 

t  In  the  Chamber  of  Commerce  at  Salt  Lake  City  is  a  won- 

derful collection  of  cabinets  and  cases,  that  were  sent  east 
in  1887  in  "  The  Utah  Exposition  Car,"  which  traveled 
twelve  thousand  miles,  and  was  visited  by  over  two 
hundred   thousand   people.     In  the  collection 
there  are  jars  of  plums  fully  as  large  as  ordi- 
nary eastern   pears  ;  gooseberries  as  large  as 
full-sized  plums  ;  and  strawberries  as  big 
as  large  tomatoes,  many  of  them  being 
from  ten  to  twelve  inches  in  cir- 
cumference, and  thirteen  of   them 
filling  a    quart    jar.      Sugar  beets 

28 


weighing  thirty-five  pounds  each,  mangel  wurzels  weighing  forty-eight  pounds 
and  Irish  potatoes  weighing  from  eight  to  eight  and  a  half  pounds  apiece, 
are  included  in  the  collection.  Potatoes,  twelve  or  fifteen  of  which  make  a 
bushel,  are  common  in  the  markets.  Melons  of  all  kinds  grow  to  great  size, 
and  are  deliciously  flavored.  The  very  streets  are  shaded  with  fruit  trees, 
and  the  humblest  adobe  cottage  is  hidden  in  its  wealth  of  apple,  pear  and 
plum,  apricot,  peach  and  nectarine  trees,  bending  beneath  their  luscious 
freightage.  Salt  Lake  is  always  compared  to  the  Dead  Sea,  but  no  "  Dead  Sea 
apples,"  fair  to  the  eye,  but  ashes  to  the  lips,  grow  upon  its  blessed  shores. 

Stock-raising  in  Utah  involves  but  little  care  or  labor.  Pasture  is  found 
the  year  round,  and  all  domestic  animals  thrive  on  the  native  grasses  of  the 
mesas  and  valleys.  There  are  now  in  the  territory  about  five  hundred 
thousand  cattle,  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  horses  and  mules,  a  hun- 
dred thousand  hogs,  and  two  and  a  half  million  sheep,  worth,  all  told, 
something  near  thirty  million  dollars. 

Utah  produced  in  1890  about  twelve  million  pounds  of  wool,  of  which 
one  million  pounds  was  manufactured  in  home  mills  and  factories,  and  the 
rest  exported.  In  the  Salt  Lake  Chamber  of  Commerce  are  forty  samples 
of  merino  wool  furnished  by  Charles  Crane,  of  Kanosh,  Kanab  County, 
president  of  the  Utah  Wool  Growers'  Association.  The  forty  fleeces  from 
which  the  samples  were  taken  weighed  from  forty-one  to  sixty-seven  pounds 
each.  Think  of  it  !  Sixty-seven  pounds  of  merino  wool  clipped  from  a 
single  sheep  —  more  than  a  whole  sheep,  bones,  mutton,  tallow,  hide  and 
all,  often  weighs  in  the  hapless  East. 

With  a  soil  of  such  matchless  fertility  ;  with  a  climate  unsurpassed  and 
unsurpassable ;  with  ten  thousand  square  miles  of  timber  lands  ;  with 
boundless  ranges  for  flocks  and  herds  ;  with  exhaustless  mines  in  a  hundred 
rugged  mountain-sides;  and  with  millions  of  acres  yet  subject  to  Government 
entry,  what  does  Utah  lack  to  render  it  the  ideal  land  of  the  farmer  and 
home-seeker  ?  It  is,  in  the  language  of  Holy  Writ,  "  A  land  of  brooks  of 
water  ;  of  fountains  and  depths,  that  spring  out  of  valleys  and  hills  ;  a  land 
of  wheat  and  barley  ;  a  land  wherein  thou  shalt  eat  bread  without  scarce- 
ness ;  thou  shalt  not  lack  anything  in  it." 

Utah  is  an  87,75o-square-mile  cornucopia. 


VI. 


UTAH    MINES 


THE  AMAZING  MINERAL  WEALTH  AND   POSSIBILITIES  OF  THE 
TERRITORY  —  A  TRUE  BONANZA  LAND. 


UT  THE  great  industry  of  Utah  thus  far  has 
been  its  mining.  Its  fabulous  riches  of 
metal  and  mineral  are  destined  to  make  this  as 
yet  but  half-explored  territory  the  gathering- 
place  of  capitalists  and  fortune  seekers  from 
every  land  beneath  the  sun.  When  fully 
known  and  developed,  they  will  eclipse  all  the 
dazzling  miracles  of  Aladdin  and  his  magical 
lamp,  and  take  their  place  among  the  wonders 
of  the  world.  They  will  teach  the  children 
of  this  generation  to  smile  at  the  fairy-tales 
that  amazed  their  fathers  and  mothers,  as 
trivial  and  tame,  for  they  will  be  able  to  rub 

daily  against-the  jewel-clad  creatures  of  infinitely  more  marvelous  stories  in 
real  life. 

The  greatest  mines  of  earth  are  yet  to  be  opened  in  the  American  Great 
West.  Mountains  of  gold  and  silver  ore,  beside  which  all  the  famed  riches 
of  the  Comstock  Lode  will  some  day  sink  to  beggars'  pence,  yet  rear  their 
proud  heads  to  heaven  untouched  by  pick  or  spade  or  drill.  The  veritable 
treasure-houses  of  the  gods  yet  await  the  enterprise  and  muscle  of  the  sturdy 
prospectors  and  miners,  who  are  destined,  and  that  ere  long,  to  fire  the 
avarice  and  the  envy  of  the  world  with  their  Midas-surpassing  wealth  of 
solid  ducats.  From  Alaska  to  Nicaragua,  the  whole  vast  system  of  Rocky 
Mountains  and  Cordilleras  is  an  almost  unbroken  ore  and  mineral  bed.  Not 
one  ten-thousandth  part  of  it  has  ever  felt  the  tap  of  a  prospector's  hammer. 
The  surface  dirt  of  California,  Colorado,  Utah,  Idaho,  Montana,  Arizona 
and  New  Mexico  mines  is  hardly  broken  ;  the  glittering  hoards  are  scarcely 
touched.  The  great  bonanza  fortunes  are  yet  to  be  made. 


Although  Utah  mining  is  in  the 
ruffled-cap  and  nursing-bottle  stage 
of  its  existence,  in  its  earliest  in- 
fancy the  territory  has  already  pro- 
duced a  grand  aggregate  of  about 
$175,000,000  in  gold,  silver,  copper 
and  lead  ;  or  more  than  the  whole 
assessed  valuation  of  such  states  as 
Wyoming  and  North  Dakota.  Ac- 
cording to  the  official  report  of  the 
United  States  Treasury  Department  tor  1890,  Utah  now  stands  third  among 
all  the  forty-nine  states  and  territories  of  the  Union,  as  a  producer  of  the 
precious  metals.  With  its  magnificent  yield  for  the  year  of  $i4,346,783  m 

32 


gold,  silver,  copper  and  lead,  it  leads  California, 
with  a  total  of  $13,370,406  ;  and  Nevada,  with 
but  $8,543,800.  Its  yearly  product  is  more  than 
four  times  as  great  as  that  of  all  the  mines  of 
the  famous  Black  Hills  of  Dakota  ;  and  it  is 
outranked  only  by  Montana  with  a  total  of 
$40,695,723  ;  and  Colorado,  with  $34,028,701. 
Its  yield  of  four  metals  in  1890  amounted  to 
nearly  one-third  of  the  entire  assessed  value  of 
all  real  estate  and  personal  property  within  its 
borders  in  1888.  There  are  mines  in  every 
county  of  the  territory.  Every  mountain  range  and  spur  is  ribbed  with 
ore  and  mineral. 

The  accidental  turning  of  a  loose  stone  among  the  bushes  in  Ontario 
Gulch,  in  Summit  county,  led  to  the  discovery  of  one  of  the  world's  greatest 
bonanzas.  The  prospect-hole  was  sold  to  a  firm  of  which  the  late  Senator 
Hearst,  of  California,  was  a  member,  for  $30,000  ;  and,  as  the  Ontario  mine, 
has  since  produced  over  $25,000,000  in  silver,  and  paid  $12,200,000  in  divi- 
dends. Its  mill  and  mining  plant  cost  $2,700,000,  and  its  annual  pay-roll 
amounts  to  nearly  $600,000.  During  1890  it  paid  out  in  wages  and  salaries, 
for  supplies,  and  in  dividends,  $2,017,055.  The  Daly  mine,  adjoining  the 
Ontario,  in  1890  produced  $834,818,  and  paid  $450,000  in  dividends,  making 
an  aggregate  of  $1,762,500  in  dividends  since  February,  1886.  There  are 
a  hundred  smaller  mines  in  the  same  district,  all  more  or  less  developed. 
The  Crescent  has  yielded  $1,500,000.  The  Woodside  produced  $444,000  in 
1889.  The  Samson  turned  out  about  $250,000  worth  of  ore  in  1890  ;  and 
scores  of  others  only  need  the  capital  and  energy  to  convert  them  into 
bonanzas  great  or  small.  Park  City,  the  metropolis  of  the  district,  is  a  pic- 
turesque place  of  five  thousand  population,  which  has  no  debt,  and  at  the 
end  of  1890  had  twelve  thousand  dollars  in  its  treasury.  Its  main  street  is 
seven  thousand  five  hundred  feet,  or  about  a  mile  and  a  half,  above  the 
level  of  the  sea.  Its  water  supply  is  piped  from  Highland  Lake,  a  liquid 
jewel  of  the  Wasatch  mountains,  ten  acres  in  extent,  forty  feet  deep,  and 
two  thousand  feet  above  the  city.  The  camp  produced  in  1890  a  grand 
total  of  153,031,650  pounds  of  ore,  an  increase  of  6,120,740  pounds  over  1889. 
Of  this,  63,297,650  pounds  were  shipped  by  rail  to  distant  smelters,  and 
89,734,000  pounds  were  reduced  at  the  home  mills.  A  single  chimney  of 
ore  at  the  east  foot  of  the  Grampian  mountain  in  Beaver  county,  yielded 
over  $13,000,000  in  four  years,  and  made  the  Horn  Silver  mine  famous 
throughout  the  world.  There  are  innumerable  mines  in  the  same  region 
that  only  need  proper  work  to  make  them  rich  producers. 

At  Alta,  on  Little  Cottonwood  Canyon,  in  Salt  Lake  county,  almost  in 
sight  of  Salt  Lake  City,  is  the  renowned  Emma  mine,  which  wrecked  the 

33 


reputation  of  one  who  had  held  high  positions  in  the  military,  political  and 
diplomatic  service  of  the  United  States.  An  amazingly  rich  body  of  ore 
had  been  struck.  For  a  long  time  the  mine  shipped  a  hundred  tons  a  day 
of  ore  that  ran  from  two  hundred  to  seven  hundred  ounces  of  silver  to  the 
ton.  General  Schenck  was  then  minister  to  England.  He  and  his  associates 
capitalized  the  mine  in  London  at  $5,000,000.  The  new  company  took  out 
$1,500,000  in  a  few  months,  and  then  came  a  collapse.  The  ore  disappeared, 
vanished  like  a  fog-bank.  The  mine  ceased  producing.  It  looked  like  a 
gigantic  swindle.  General  Schenck  was  ruined.  The  United  States  Minister 
to  the  Court  of  St.  James  had  to  fly  from  England  to  escape  prosecution. 
It  was  the  sensation  of  the  day.  Recent  investigations  and  discoveries  seem 
to  indicate  that  the  apparent  failure  was  due  to  mistakes  in  the  working  of 
the  mine.  Experts  say  the  company  ran  off  the  main  ore-body,  and  fol- 
lowed side-slips.  After  years  of  loss  a  number  of  new  strikes  have  been 
made,  and  the  mine  is  again  producing  ore  that  runs  one  hundred  and  ten 
ounces  of  silver  to  the  ton. 

The  Flagstaff,  a  neighbor  of  the  Emma,  and  also  owned  by  an  English 
company,  formerly  produced  from  a  hundred  to  two  hundred  tons  a  day  of 
low-grade  ore.  Then  the  ore  body  was  lost  for  a  long  time,  and  has  only 
recently  been  re-discovered  after  years  of  labor  and  expense.  The  mine 
is  now  turning  out  ore  that  runs  from  twenty  to  forty  ounces  of  silver  to 
the  ton. 

There  were,  at  one  time,  nearly  a  hundred  producing  mines  in  this  camp, 

but  when  the  Emma  and   the   Flagstaff   ore- 
bodies  seemed  to  fail,  work  on  most  of  them 
was  abandoned.     The  late  discoveries  in 
the  two  famous  mines    have   started 
operations    on    some  of    these    long- 
neglected  properties,  and  rich  strikes 
and    a    renewed    boom    are 
among  every  day's  possibil- 
ities.     Ten    mines     in    the 


camp,  during  1890,  shipped  nine  hundred  and  eighty  tons  of  ore  that  yielded 
from  thirty-two  to  two  hundred  and  seventy-five  ounces  of  silver  to  the  ton 
—  averaging  ninety  and  a  half  ounces. 

On  Big  Cottonwood  Canyon,  in  Salt  Lake  county,  the  Maxfield  mine  has 
recently  become  a  dividend-payer.  In  the  last  six  months  of  1890  it  pro- 
duced eleven  hundred  tons  of  ore,  running  seventy  ounces  of  silver  to  the 
ton.  The  Congo  shows  ore  running  forty  per  cent,  lead,  sixty-five  ounces 
of  silver,  and  from  five  to  ten  dollars  in  gold  to  the  ton.  The  Reed  &  Ben- 
son mine  has  yielded  $300,000  ;  and  there  are  a  number  of  other  mines  that 
promise  big  bundles  of  bullion. 

On  Snake  Creek,  in  Utah  county,  many  rich  prospects  are  being  opened. 
up,  the  great  drawback  being  the  lack  of  transportation.  There  is  no  rail- 
road communication  and  the  wagon  road  is  steep  and  rugged.  The  South- 
ern Tier  mine  has  recently  made  some  shipments  of  ore  that  runs  a  hundred 
and  fifty  ounces  of  silver  to  the  ton  ;  and  the  Newell,  Steamboat  and 
Levigneur  claims  are  showing  handsomely. 

On  American  Fork,  in  Utah  county,  there  are  more  than  a  hundred  mines 
in  all  stages  of  development.  The  North  Star,  from  mere  exploring  work, 
shipped  in  1890  over  thirty  tons  of  ore,  that  ran  in  silver  and  lead  about 
eighty  dollars  to  the  ton.  The  Flora  shows  surface  ore  running  from  eighty 
to  a  hundred  and  fifty  ounces  of  silver  to  the  ton,  and  from  twenty-five  to 
forty  per  cent.  lead.  The  New  Idea  has  a  vein  from  eight  to  twenty-three 
feet  thick.  One  shipment  of  its  ore  brought  a  hundred  and  seven  dollars  a 
ton.  The  Osborn  No.  2  has  turned  out  some  ore  that  shows  six  hundred 
ounces  of  silver  to  the  ton.  The  Milkmaid,  Treasure-Consolidate,  Kalama- 
zoo,  Pittsburg,  Chicago  and  Superior  and  Silver-Bell  are  all  in  high  grade 
ore,  and  there  are  dozens  more  only  awaiting  the  touch  of  capital  to  put 
them  among  the  great  mines  of  the  country. 

In  Wasatch  county,  valuable  bodies  of  ore  have  been  struck  in  the 
Glencoe,  Wilson  and  Barrett,  Lowell,  McHenry,  Hawkeye,  Boulder,  Free 
Silver,  Wasatch  and  numerous  others. 

Twenty-seven  miles  southwest  of  Salt  Lake  City,  on  the  Rio  Grande 
Western  Railway,  in  the  wild  and  picturesque  Bingham  Canyon  of  the 

Oquirrh  mountains,  lies  the  first  mining  district 
organized  in  Utah,  and  the  Old  Jordan  mine  in 
this  canyon  was  the  first  mine  discovered  in  the 
territory.  Its  oxidized  surface  ores,  at  its  inter- 
section with  the  South  Galena,  yielded  $2,000,000  ; 
and  a  million  tons  of  quartz,  that  will  run  twenty 
dollars  a  ton,  now  lie  in  sight  in  the  same  locality, 
unmined,  unhonored  and  unsung,  because  the  gold 
and  silver  in  it  are  so  combined  that  no  method 
has  yet  been  devised  to  work  it  without  losing  one 

37 


or  the  other.  Less  than  a  mile  north  of  the  Jordan,  on  Carr  Fork,  is  a 
mountain  side  containing  hundreds  of  thousands  of  tons  of  the  same  queer 
quartz,  bearing  about  ten  dollars  in  gold  and  ten  in  silver  to  the  ton.  Fully 
1,500,000  tons  of  quartz  lying  in  plain  view,  every  ton  of  it  carrying  twenty 
dollars  in  gold  and  silver,  or  a  total  of  at  least  $30,000,000,  only  waiting 
for  the  right  man,  with  the  right  process  of  extraction,  to  come  along  and 
make  himself  a  rival  of  the  Rothschilds. 

'But  Bingham  has  millions  of  tons  of  reducible  ores.  The  Oquirrh  moun- 
tains, which  rise  to  a  height  of  10,500  feet,  are  literally  bulged  out  with  ores 
that  are  easily  and  cheaply  mined  and  milled.  It  has  produced  more  silver- 
lead  ores  than  any  other  camp  in  Utah,  and  is  to-day  the  second  camp  in 
tonnage  of  ore  shipped,  being  outranked  only  by  Tintic.  The  mineral  belt 
is  about  six  miles  long,  and  from  a  half-mile  to  two  miles  wide,  and  it  is 
nearly  all  more  or  less  developed. 

The  camp  shipped  33,822  tons  of  ore  in  1890,  of  which  the  South  Galena 
shipped  9,620  tons  ;  the  Brooklyn,  8,092  tons  ;  Yo  Semite  No.  2,  2,610  tons  ; 
Old  Telegraph,  2,500  ;  Spanish,  2,100  ;  Niagara,  1,500  ;  Lead  and  Yo 
Semite  No.  i,  1,396  ;  Utah,  1,216  ;  and  the  Winamuck,  York,  Highland, 
Dixon,  Rough  and  Ready,  Silver  Hill,  Markham,  Silver  Gauntlet,  Buckeye, 
Silver  Shield,  Last  Chance  and  Fireclay,  from  102  to  715  tons,  each.  Forty 
other  mines  sent  out  a  total  of  1,423  tons. 

The  South  Galena,  Brooklyn,  Niagara  and  Yo  Semite  have  concentrating 
mills,  and  there  are  gold  mills  on  the  Stewart  and  Stewart  No.  2  ;  for,  in 
addition  to  all  the  vast  deposits  of  silver,  there  is  an  extensive  field  Of  free- 
milling  gold  ore,  running  from  five  to  fifteen  dollars  to  the  ton. 

Among  a  lifetime's  experiences  of  travel,  by  every  conveyance  from  an 
ocean  steamer  or  a  limited  express  train  to  a  Carolina  bull-chariot  or  an 
African  dromedary,  there  is  nothing  more  novel  than  a  ride  in  the  South 
Galena  ore-cars  from  the  mine  to  the  Rio  Grande  Western  Railway  station. 
Thirty  iron  cars,  each  carrying  two  tons  of  ore  or  concentrates,  arranged  in 
couples,  with  a  combination  engineer,  conductor  and  brakeman,  all  in  one, 
to  every  two  cars.  Four  thousand  feet  descent  in  four  miles,  over  a  track 
so  crooked  that  a  black  snake  could  hardly  follow  it  without  breaking  his 
back.  It  is  like  riding  a  twisty  streak  of  lightning  down  from  the  clouds 
to  earth. 

The  Bingham  mines  give  employment  to  from  fifteen  hundred  to  two 
thousand  men,  and  the  production  is  constantly  and  rapidly  increasing. 
Many  important  discoveries  of  ore  have  been  made  during  the  year  ending 
in  August,  1891,  and  over  two  hundred  new  mines  have  been  located  in  the 
district. 

The  Dry  Canyon  and  Ophir  mines,  in  Tooele  county,  during  1890  shipped 
between  four  and  five  thousand  tons  of  ore  that  ran  fifty-three  per  cent, 
lead,  twenty-three  ounces  of  silver  and  one  dollar  in  gold  to  the  ton. 

'     38 


*' A  land  whose  stones  are  iron,  and  out  of  whose  hills  thou   mayest  dig  brass." — Deut.  vill.  9. 


The  principal  producers  are  the  Honerine,  Brooklyn,  Elgin,  Belfast,  Trade 
Wind,  Miner's  Delight,  Utah  Gem,  Monarch  and  Northern  Delight,  and 
the  Buckhorn  group. 

Second  in  size  and  importance  of  all  the  mining  camps  in  Utah,  being 
surpassed  only  by  the  great  bonanza  district,  which  includes  the  Ontario 

and  Daly  mines,  is  Tintic  in  Juab  county. 
It  lies  on  the  western  slope  of  the  Oquirrh 
mountains,    about   ninety   miles   a   little 
west  of  south  from  Salt  Lake  City.      It 
consists  of  a  vast  mineral  belt  or 
zone,  or  of  three  or  four  parallel 
ones.      This  great  ore-channel  is 
nine  miles  long  from  north  to  south, 
and  one  and  a  quarter  miles  wide- 
from  east  to  west.     It  runs  solidly 
across  to  Rush  Valley,  and  there 
sinks,  and  is   held   by  experts  to 
reappear   at    Bingham,    thirty   or 
forty  miles  away  on  an  air    line. 
The  camp  contains  many  wonder- 
ful mines,  and  new  discoveries  are 
being  constantly  made. 

In  1890  the  camp  shipped  76,497  tons  of  ore 
that  ran  from  fifty  to  a  hundred  and  fifty  dollars 
to  the  ton,  and  the  shipments  are  steadily  and  rapidly 
increasing.      The  largest  shippers  for  that  year  were 
the  Bullion-Beck,  29,509  tons  ;   Eureka  Hill,   20,640  ; 
Mammoth,  9,590  ;    Centennial-Eureka,  3,668  ;   Trea- 
sure, 3,200  ;  and  Keystone,  1,700,  while  the  Julian  Lane,  Eagle, 
Northern    Spy,  Tesora,  Sioux,  Sunbeam,  Carissa  and  Governor 
shipped  from  103  to  798  tons  each.      The  total  shipments  for 
the  first  half  of  1891  have  run  about  250  tons  a  day. 

The  Eureka  Hill  could  have  been  bought  a  few  years  ago  for  a  song. 
It  is  now  shipping  a  hundred  tons  a  day  of  ore  that  nets  about  fifty  dollars 
a  ton,  or  something  like  $150,000  a  month.  Its  monthly  pay-roll  is  about 
$25,000,  and  all  other  expenses  say  $10,000  a  month  ;  making  a  total 
monthly  expenditure  of  $35,000,  and  leaving  a  trifle  of  $115,000  a  month  to 
be  divided  among  its  fortunate  owners.  It  is  capitalized  in  ten  thousand 
shares,  of  which  John  Q.  Packard,  of  Salt  Lake  City,  and  his  brother's 
estate  hold  five  thousand  and  one  shares  ;  Jacob  Lawrence's  estate,  three 
thousand  five  hundred  ;  and  Justice  Field,  of  the  United  States  Supreme 
Court,  and  his  son-in-law,  George  W.  Whitney,  fourteen  hundred  and  ninety- 
nine.  So  from  this  one  young  mining  camp  in  Utah  a  judge  of  the  highest 


40 


tribunal  in  the  new  world  rakes  in  about  $16,000  dollars  a  month  ,  that  is 
double  his  annual  salary  every  thirty  days. 

The  Centennial-Eureka  has  had  a  romantic  experience.  A  few  years  ago 
its  owners  were  almost  driven  to  the  wall  to  meet  a  note  for  $10,000,  and 
offered  half  the  mine  as  security  for  the  money.  They  finally  succeeded  m 
borrowing  it,  but  had  to  get  an  extension  of  time  upon  it.  Three  da}^s 
afterward  they  shipped  two  car-loads  of  ore  that  netted  them  $27,000,  It  is 
now  paying  $60,000  a  month  in  dividends. 

The  Mammoth,  across  the  mountain,  about  a  mile  and  a  half  southeast  of 
the  Eureka  Hill,  is  said  to  have  been  traded  some  years  ago  for  a  few  head 
of  Texas  steers.  During  1890,  it  paid  twelve  regular  dividends,  and  four 
extra  ones,  of  $40,000  each,  a  total  of  $640,000  for  the  year.  Two  car-loads 
of  its  ore  recently  netted  $78,000.  One  mass  of  fifty  pounds,  which  was 
taken  out  and  sent  east,  was  nearly  half  pure  gold.  In  this  mine  free 
gold  is  found  in  horn  silver,  a  combination  rarely,  if  ever,  met  with  any- 
where else. 

By  far  the  heaviest  ore-shipper  in  the  camp  is  the  Bullion-Beck,  which 
adjoins  the  Eureka  Hill.  Captain  S.  H.  Smith,  its  superintendent,  was  for 
twenty  years  on  the  Comstock  Lode,  and  had  charge  of  the  famous  Belcher 
mine  from  its  opening  to  its  virtual  collapse  on  its  three-thousand-foot  level, 
during  which  time  $35,000,000  were  taken  out  of  it.  The  Bullion-Beck  has 
a  superb  plant,  including  hoisting-works,  air-compresser,  dynamos,  black- 
smith and  carpenter  shops,  assay  office,  and  fire-apparatus  ;  the  whole  costing 
over  three  hundred  thousand  dollars.  The  ore  runs  from  forty-five  to  a 
hundred  ounces  of  silver,  and  from  fifteen  to  twenty-five  per  cent,  of  lead, 
to  the  ton.  The  mine  is  capitalized  at  $1,000,000,  and  in  1890  paid  $420,000 
in  dividends,  or  forty-two  per  cent.,  besides  paying  for  all  improvements  and 
additions  to  machinery. 

The  Gemini  group,  just  across  the  gulch  north  of  the  Bullion-Beck,  in- 
cludes the  Keystone,  Excelsior,  Red  Bird  and  a  number  of  others.  Captain 
John  McCrystal,  the  superintendent  and  part-owner,  is  also  superintendent 
of  the  Eureka  Hill,  and  of  the  Eagle  and  Godiva  groups.  The  Gemini  has 
shipped  during  1891,  about  fifty  tons  a  day  of  ore  that  nets  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  fifty  dollars  a  ton. 

The  Eagle  is  a  new  mine,  but  five  hundred  and  ninety  tons  of  its  ore, 
shipped  between  September  21,  1890,  and  August  i,  1891,  netted  $45,000, 
after  paying  in  freights  and  for  reduction  about  $17,000  ;  giving  an  average 
yield  of  $110  to  the  ton. 

The  Godiva  shows  ore  carrying  twenty-five  dollars  a  ton  in  gold.  The 
Northern  Spy  produced  $400,000  above  its  first  level.  The  Plutus,  Snow- 
flake,  Sioux,  Iron  Blossom,  Turk,  Hungarian,  Daisy,  Lucky  Boy,  Belcher 
group,  Alamo,  Golden  Ray  group  and  a  legion  of  others  are  all  working  in 
ore  that  is  rich  enough  to  satisfy  any  reasonable  would-be  bonanza-king. 


The  Dragon  mine,  during  1890,  shipped  to  the  smelters  near  Salt  Lake  City 
6,050  tons  of  iron  ore  for  fluxing  purposes.  Nearly  all  the  Tintic  mines  are 
worked  by  their  owners  or  leasers,  who,  with  few  exceptions,  started  in  poor 
men.  The  fame  of  its  riches  has  begun  to  reach  the  outer  world.  New 
men  are  pouring  in  ;  new  claims  are  being  located  in  every  direction  ;  long- 
abandoned  "prospects"  are  being  re-opened  and  worked;  a  branch  of 
the  Rio  Grande  Western  Railway  is  nearing  the  camp  as  rapidly  as  men  and 
money  can  push  it ;  and  there  is  every  indication  of  a  great  boom  through- 
out the  whole  region.  Its  marvelous  wealth,  and  the  opportunities  it  offers 
for  men  of  nerve  and  enterprise,  cannot  be  over-estimated. 

Jay  Gould  has  never  been  charged  with  extravagance  or  over-enthusiasm 
in  his  estimates  of  anything  belonging  to  somebody  else.  On  the  twenty- 
fourth  of  August,  1891,  he  and  his  party,  including  his  two  daughters 
and  two  of  his  sons,  with  a  special  train  of  four  cars,  ran  into  Eureka, 
the  capital  of  the  Tintic  district,  to  the  astonishment  of  the  citizens. 
The  whole  party,  including  the  Wall-street  Wizard,  made  a  tour  of  the 
Bullion-Beck  mine  and  of  the  camp  in  general,  and  expressed  in  glowing 
terms  their  admiration  of  its  rich  possibilities.  In  an  account  of  the 
visitation,  The  Salt  Lake  City  Tribune  of  the  next  day  said  :  "  Mr.  Gould 
expressed  his  regret  that  time  would  not  permit  him  to  make  a  personal 
inspection  of  all  the  great  mines.  He  made  the  remark  that  what  first 
attracted  his  attention  to  Tintic  was  an  interview  with  Mr.  Pat.  Donan, 
reported  in  the  Salt  Lake  papers,  wherein  Mr.  Donan  had  said  that 
Eureka  was  surrounded  by  mountains  of  silver.  Mr.  Gould  remarked  that 
Mr.  Donan's  statement  did  not  convey  the  half,  as  there  were  not  only 
mountains  but  valleys  of  silver.  When  informed  as  to  the  present  out- 
put and  future  possibilities  of  the  camp,  Mr.  Gould  was  utterly  amazed, 
and  said  it  was  no  wonder  the  Rio  Grande  Western  was  building  into 
Tintic." 

That  is  testimony  from  one  whose  eyes  were  never  known  to  exaggerate 
the  belongings  of  "the  other  fellow,"  and  whose  tongue  rarely  indulges  in 
enthusiastic  phrases  on  any  subject.  New  as  it  is,  Tintic  is  one  of  the 
world's  greatest  mining  camps,  and  has  in  its  still  but  half-explored  moun- 
tain sides  the  making  of  a  thousand  millionaires.  Its  ores  are  said  by 
experts  to  be  almost  identical  with  those  of  Leadville,  and  they  are  practi- 
cally limitless  in  quantity. 

West  Tintic,  in  Tooele  county,  has  fifty  or  more  partially  developed  mines, 
all  of  which  show  fine  bodies  of  high-grade  ore  ;  that  in  the  Stonewall 
Jackson  running  six  hundred  and  forty  ounces  of  silver,  and  ten  dollars  and 
forty  cents  in  gold,  to  the  ton. 

Marvelous  stories  of  rich  discoveries  have  recently  come  from  Deep 
Creek,  below  Tintic  ;  and  Marysvale  in  Piute  county,  toward  which  the  San 
Pete  branch  of  the  Rio  Grande  Western  is  rapidly  pushing  its  way,  bids  fair 

42 


to  become  a  wonder,  even  in  Utah.     The  Homestake  is  in  ore  that  yields 
six  hundred  dollars  to  the  ton  in  silver,  both  antimonial  and  native. 

The  Star  group  has  been  shipping  ore  eighty  or  ninety  miles  by  wagon  to 
a  railroad,  but  its  ore,  yielding  from  one  to  two  hundred  dollars  to  the  ton, 
will  stand  even  that  expensive  mode  of  handling. 

The  Giles  mines,  six  in  number,  show  a  seven-foot  vein  of  low  grade, 
free-milling  ore.  The  Plata  del  Mina  shows  ore  that  runs  nine  hundred 
ounces  of  silver,  and  twenty-five  dollars  in  gold,  to  the  ton.  The  Triangle 
ore  runs  twenty-five  ounces  in  silver,  and  twenty-five  per  cent.  lead.  The 
Crystal  has  immense  bodies  of  carbonate  and  galena  ore,  averaging  forty 
ounces  of  silver,  ten  dollars  in  gold,  and  thirty  per  cent,  of  lead  to  the  ton. 
The  Clyde  and  Crown  Point  ores  run  from  ten  to  four  hundred  ounces  of 
silver,  and  from  five  to  fifty  per  cent,  copper  to  the  ton.  The  Antelope  is 
getting  out  large  quantities  of  ore  yielding  twenty  ounces  of  silver  and  five 
dollars  in  gold  to  the  ton.  The  region  is  apparently  one  of  the  richest  ever 
discovered  in  the  Territory,  and,  with  the  coming  of  the  railroad,  is  destined 
to  witness  a  tremendous  mining  boom. 

Away  down  in  Washington  county,  cornering  on  Nevada  and  Arizona, 
large  bodies  of  silver  ore,  chiefly  in  the  form  of  chlorides,  have  been  found. 
There,  far  from  railroads  and  the  noise  of  "  the  madding  crowd,"  two 
companies,  the  Christy  and  the  Stormont,  have  worked  along  quietly, 
and  taken  out  five  million  ounces  of  fine  silver, 
but  little  explored, 


reason  to  doubt  that 
will  ultimately  be 
mountains  and 
A  wild  rush  has 
August,  1891,  to  a 
county,  north  of 
ing  discoveries  of 
made.  A  town  of  a 
sprang  up  in  two 
christened  "La 
Spanish  for  "The 
have  been  filled  with 
lously  rich  strikes  and 
stories  are  true,  an- 
camp  is  assured.  So, 
most  to  its  southern- 


The  region  has  been 
and  there  seems  no 
many  valuable  mines 
found  among  its 
gulches. 

taken  place,  during 
region  in  Cache 
Ogden,  where  amaz- 
silver  have  just  been 
thousand  inhabitants 
weeks,  and  has  been 
Plata,"  which  is 
Silver."  The  papers 
accounts  of  fabu- 
finds,  and  if  half  the 
other  great  bonanza 
from  its  northern- 
most bounds,  Utah 


is  a  mighty  treasury  of  silver  and  golden  opportunities  and  possibilities. 

Utah  is  one  of  the  world's  bonanza-lands,  a  realm  of  realization  for  the 
dreams  of  gold  and  silver  hunters,  a  prospectors'  and  miners'  true  El 
Dorado. 


43 


VII. 


MISCELLANEOUS     MINING 


UNLIMITED   VARIETY  OF  UTAH'S  MINERAL  RESOURCES — 
EVERYTHING  FOUND  BUT  TIN. 


kUT  WITH  all  its  mighty  mountain  treasure-houses 
of  royal  ore,  gold  and  silver  are  but  two  items 
in  the  long  and  glorious  inventory  of  Utah's 
mineral  wealth.  Of  all  the  metals  and  minerals 
in  human  use,  tin  is  perhaps  the  only  one  not 
found  in  workable  quantities  within  the  borders  of 
this  wonderland.  Run  over  but  part  of  the  almost 
endless  list :  Alum  is  found  in  Utah  and  Salt  Lake 
counties  ;  aluminum,  in  Davis  and  Morgan  counties  ; 
antimony,  in  Box  Elder,  Piute  and  Garfield  counties ; 
agates,  in  endless  quantities,  and  of  great  beauty,  in 
Emery  county  ;  arsenic  in  Washington  and  Iron  coun- 
ties ;  bismuth,  in  Juab,  San  Pete,  and  Morgan  counties  ; 
copper  in  Juab,  Miller  and  Salt  Lake  counties ;  cop- 
peras, in  Utah  county  ;  coal,  exhaustless  in  quantity, 
and  unsurpassed  in  quality,  in  Summit,  Utah,  San  Pete,  Emery,  and 
Iron  counties  ;  carbonate  of  soda,  by  thousands  of  tons,  in  Salt 
Lake  county  ;  chalcedony  and  chrysolite,  in  various  regions  ;  cinnabar 
or  quicksilver,  in  San  Pete  county ;  Fuller's  earth,  in  many  places ; 
garnets,  in  Tooele  county  ;  gold,  in  Salt  Lake,  Juab,  Tooele,  and  other 
counties  ;  granite,  in  Salt  Lake,  San  Pete,  and  every  other  county  in  the 
territory  ;  graphite  or  plumbago,  in  Utah  county  ;  gypsum,  in  Juab,  San 
Pete  and  Washington  counties  ;  iron,  hematite  and  magnetic,  in  Davis, 
Morgan,  Juab,  Cache  and  Iron  counties  ;  jasper,  in  numerous  places  ;  jet,  in 
San  Pete  and  Emery  counties  ;  kaolin,  in  Utah,  Salt  Lake,  Davis,  Tooele 
and  Sevier  counties  ;  manganese,  in  Utah  and  Tooele  counties  ;  malachite, 
in  Juab,  Beaver  and  several  other  counties ;  marble,  of  every  color  and  the 
finest  quality,  in  many  localities  ;  mica,  in  Davis,  Salt  Lake  and  Garfield 


44 


counties  ;  nitre,  in  vast  quantities,  in  various  regions  ;  oolite,  in  San  Pete 
county  ;  opals,  of  many  kinds,  nearly  everywhere  ;  ozokerite,  or  mineral 
wax,  in  Utah,  Wasatch  and  Emery  counties  ;  rock-salt,  millions  of  tons,  in 
Juab,  San  Pete,  Sevier  and  other  counties  ;  saltpetre,  in  Utah  county  ;  silver 
in  nearly  if  not  quite  every  county  in  the  territory  ;  sulphur,  enough  to 
supply  the  world,  in  Millard,  Beaver  and  Utah  counties  ;  topaz,  white,  yellow 
and  blue,  in  Tooele,  Box  Elder  and  various  other  counties  ;  tourmaline,  in 
many  places  ;  talc,  in  Utah,  Emery  and  Piute  counties  ;  zincblende  and  sul- 
phide, in  various  counties  ;  alabaster,  amethysts,  asbestos,  asphaltum,  azurite, 
basalt,  bitumen,  bog-iron,  cats-eyes,  epsomite,  lignite,  ochres  of  every  hue, 
onyx,  ribbon  jasper,  rose  quartz,  ruby  silver,  sardonyx,  satin  spar,  specular 
iron,  zincite  and  eighty-nine  other  metals  and  minerals  are  found  in  greater 
or  less  abundance  all  over  the  territory. 

Thousands  of  square  miles  are  underlaid  by  coal.  Utah  could  supply  a 
nation  with  fuel  for  centuries  to  come.  At  Scofield  and  at  Castle  Gate,  on 
the  Rio  Grande  Western  Railway,  the  Pleasant  Valley  Coal  Company,  during 
1890,  mined  nearly  250,000  tons  of  coal  equal  to  the  best  Pennsylvania 
bituminous  article.  The  vein  at  Scofield  averages  fourteen  feet  in  thickness, 
and  the  mines  are  simply  mountains  of  coal.  At  Castle  Gate,  the  company 
has  a  hundred  coke  ovens,  and  in  1890,  turned  out  10,000  tons  of  coke, 
With  coal  unsurpassed  in  the  world,  the  Castle  Gate  coke  will  ultimately  be 
found  equal  to  the  best  that  Connellsville  produces.  The  Union  Pacific 
Company  owns  coal-mines  at  Scofield,  near  those  of  the  Pleasant  Valley 
Company,  which  in  1890,  produced  about  100,000  tons.  The  Home  Coal 
Company  and  the  Chalk  Creek  Company  have  mines  near  Coalville,  on  the 
Weber  river,  in  Summit  county,  that  produced  36,400  tons  of 
coal  in  1890.  Salt  Lake  City  used  nearly  100,000.  tons.  One 
of  the  sights  at  the  World's  Fair  in  Chicago  is  to  be  a  solid 
block  of  Pleasant  Valley  coal,  twenty-eight  feet  thick,  twenty- 
eight  feet  long,  and  eight  feet  wide.  It  will  be  bound  with 
iron  bands,  carefully  padded  and  boxed  in.  There  are  said  to 
be  in  Iron  county  veins  of  solid  coal  a  hundred  feet  in  thick- 
ness. Iron  abounds  everywhere.  The  Tintic  ore  runs 
about  sixty  per  cent,  metallic  iron,  and  from  five  to  fifteen 
dollars  in  gold,  to  the  ton.  One  of  the  most  remarkable 


Coke 


deposits  of  iron  ore  in  the  world  is  in  Iron  county,  which  takes  its  name 
from  its  vast  beds  of  the  most  useful  of  all  the  metals.  It  lies  in  prodigious 
parallel  belts,  one  of  which  is  described  as  being  sixteen  miles  long  by  three 
miles  wide.  Experts  declare  there  are  500,000,000  tons  in  sight.  It  runs 
sixty-two  per  cent,  metallic  iron,  with  but  a  trace  of  sulphur  and  phosphorus. 
When  that  region  of  mineral  miracles  is  penetrated  by  a  railroad,  as  it  soon 
will  be  by  the  Rio  Grande  Western,  the  eyes  of  creation  will  be  made  stick 
out  past  its  hat-rim  with  amazement  and  admiration.  Iron  is  found  in  all  the 
region  about  Ogden,  in  Box  Elder,  Morgan,  Cache,  and  Weber  counties  ;  and 
in  nearly,  if  not  quite,  every  other  county  in  the  territory. 

Great  Salt  Lake  would  supply  the  world  with  salt,  and  never  miss  it.  At 
Salina  on  the  San  Pete  Valley  branch  of  the  Rio  Grande  Western  Railway, 
there  are  five  mountains,  vast  Wasatch  peaks,  of  solid  rock  salt,  so  pure  and 
clear  that  one  can  read  through  a  block  of  it,  and  similar  deposits  are  found 
near  Nephi  and  in  a  number  of  other  regions.  The  winds  sometimes  in  a 
single  night  pile  up  hundreds  of  tons  of  sulphate  of  soda  on  the  shores  of 
Salt  Lake  ;  and,  just  below  Manti  on  the  Rio  Grande  Western  road,  are  the 
Saleratus  Beds,  where  for  several  miles  the  whole  earth  is  covered  with  an 
efflorescent  soda  sufficiently  pure  for  household  use.  Copperas,  almost  pure 
and  in  large  quantities,  has  been  found  in  Spanish  Fork  Canyon.  Roofing 
slate,  of  unsurpassable  quality,  and  of  many  colors,  abounds  on  Antelope 
Island.  Ozokerite,  or  mineral  wax,  has  been  discovered  near  Soldier  Summit, 
on  the  Rio  Grande  Western  Railway.  It  is  proof  against  water,  air  and  acids, 
and  can  be  used  to  render  other  fabrics  equally  impervious.  It  is  a  perfect 
insulator,  and  is  largely  utilized  for  phonograph  cylinders  and  cathedral 
candles.  In  its  natural  state  it  is  black  and  waxy  ;  when  refined  it  becomes 
white  and  almost  translucent.  No  ordinary  heat  softens  it.  The  only  other 
known  deposit  of  it  in  the  world  is  in  Russia,  and  is  said  to  have  yielded 
$300,000,000.  Gilsonite,  named  for  the  veteran  prospector,  Sam  Gilson, 
who  discovered  it,  is  found  in  exhaustless  quantities  near  Price  Station,  and 
in  a  number  of  other  places.  It  is  said  to  be  ninety-nine  per  cent,  pure 
asphaltum.  Cowboys  and  hunters  bring  reports  of  a  great  lake  of  asphaltum, 
somewhat  like  that  of  Trinidad,  in  the  Green  River  region,  in  which  the  cat- 
tle get  stuck  like  flies  on  sticky  fly-paper.  Near  Agate  Station,  on  the  Rio 
Grande  Western  Railway,  are  thousands  of  acres  of  superb  water-agates. 
Some  specimens  five  feet  in  diameter,  flawless  and  beautifully  tinted,  have 
been  found  ;  and  among  them  carnelians,  one  of  which  measured  five  inches 
across.  But  why  go  on  with  the  enumeration  ?  It  would  require  a  volume  as 
big  as  an  unabridged  dictionary  to  hold  the  mere  muster-roll  of  Utah  resources 
and  products.  There  is  scarcely  anything  in  all  the  catalogue  of  human  needs 
or  greeds  that  is  not  supplied  in  this  vast  Deity-made  storehouse. 


46 


VIII. 


BRIEFLY    RETROSPECTIVE 


UTAH'S   PROGRESS  AND    POSSIBILITIES — POPULATION   THE 
TERRITORY   COULD   EASILY   SUPPORT. 


'UCH  is   Utah,   the   Gem  of   the  Rockies,  where  all  grandeurs 
and  glories  of    scene,  all  charms  and  salubrities  of  climate, 
and  all  riches  of  soil  and  forest  and  mine,  unite  to  form  one 
of  earth's  grandest  garden-spots.     It    is   a   land  of    majestic 
dimensions,  incomputable  resources,  and  illimitable  possibili- 
ties ;    a  land  of  gold  and  silver  mountains,  of  fruit-trees  and 
vineyards,  of    lowing   kine    and    golden    grain  ;    under   the    feet    a 
carpet    of    flowers   bespangled    with   gold-dust,  and   the   bluest  of 
heavens  bending  above  and  resting  its  arch  on  the  walls  of  the  Sierras. 

With  a  population  as  dense  as  that  of  Ohio,  seventy-five  to  the  square 
mile,  Utah,  with  87,750  square  miles  of  domain,  would  maintain  6,581,250 
people.     With  two  hundred  and  thirty  to  the  square  mile,  as  in 
Massachusetts,  Utah  would  be  an  empire  of  20,182,500  souls.     It 
now    has   a  population   of   but    220,932  ;    so    that    all   the    great 
opportunities  of  mighty  state-building  still  remain  open  to  every 
energetic  and  enterprising  new-comer,  and  the  tide  of  brain  and 
brawn  and  capital  is  already  beginning  to  flow  in.     The 
assessed    valuation    of    real    and    personal    property  rose 
from  $51,917,312  in   1889,  to  $104,758,750   in   1890;    an 
increase  of  nearly  102  per  cent,  in  a  single  year.      The 
banking    capital    increased    during    the    same 
year,    from    $1,580,000,    to    $3,951500,    an   in- 
crease of  150  per  cent.  ;  and  the  deposits  rose 
from  $5,882,213  to  $9,572,286,  an  increase  of 
63  per  cent.     There  is  virtually  no  debt,  and 
the  total    taxation   is   but    seventeen   mills   on 
the  dollar  of  an  assessment  at  one-fifth  valu- 
ation,  or  about  three   and   one-half   mills   on 

47 


the  dollar  of  real  value  assessment.     There  are  no  delinquent    taxes,  and 
consequently  no  delinquent   tax-lists  for  the  newspapers.     The  Salt  Lake 
v          County  tax-list  for    1890    amounted    to   $538,795,  all  of    which  was 
promptly  paid,  except  $2,853  that  represented  erroneous  assessments. 
The  Salt  Lake  City  tax-list  amounted  to  $215,709  ;  of  which  all 
but  $1,138  was  speedily  paid    in,  and   the   trifling   sum   unpaid 
represented    erroneous    or    disputed    assessments.      Could    any 
statement,  in  so  few  words,  give  a  more 
vivid  idea  of  the  prosperity  of  the  region 
and    its    people  ?     In    the    year    ending 
June    30,    1890,    nearly    $5,000,000    was 
spent  in  new  buildings  ;   and  the  capital- 
ization of  the  new  mining,  manufactur- 
ing,  mercantile    and    miscellaneous  cor- 
porations,   organized    in    the    Territory 
during  the  year,  reached   the  enormous 
total  of  $47,932,000.      There  are  about 
1,200  miles  of  railroad  in  the  Territory, 
and  new  lines  are  being  pushed  in  many 
directions.     The  whole  region  shows  the 
rush  of  improvement  and  prosperity. 

Utah's  mines  of  gold,  silver,  copper 
and  lead,  in  1890,  yielded  $14,346,783  ; 
its  farms,  orchards  and  gardens  produced 
$io,ooo,oco  ;  its  flocks  and  herds  $5,000,000  ;  its  coal,  iron 
and  other  minerals  $1,000,000  ;  its  lumber,  salt  and  similar 
commodities  $1,000,000  ;  and  its  manufactories,  in  round 
numbers,  $5,000,000  ;  a  grand  total  of  $36,346,783,  or  about  $160 
for  every  man,  woman  and  child,  Gentile  and  Mormon,  of  its 
population,  as  the  proceeds  of  one  year's  work.  Where  on  all  God's  earth 
can  a  better  showing  be  made  ? 

Utah  is  the  banner-land  of  thrift  and  progress. 


IX 


UTAH'S    GREAT   RAILWAY. 


THE  GRAND  HIGHWAY  OF  TRAVEL. 


God  l|ad  reared  the  nigged    walls 
Round  Ulah's  verdi  vales; 

nqaii  canie  on  tys  rr]ission   and 

rails. 
O'er  winch,  iq  perfect  Palace  cars, 

is  wlfirled 

c^t  §'lxty  ni'lss  an  I]our 
T\\\§  wonder   of  (l]e  world, 


w 


iron]  frozeri  Jrjgid 
Tlieir   polislied  peaks   of  §i]ow, 
To  fields   of  waving  ^oldei]  jrair] 
Meadowlaqds.  below. 
gl]  jardei)§>  117  wtyose  preserve 
would   pale. 
arj  tjour  we 
ffje  rail. 


VER  hundreds  of  miles  of  this  magnificent  young  empire, 
opening  it  up  to  the  knowledge  and  admiration  of  the 
outside  world,  to  settlement  and  development  and  marvel- 
ous growth,  stretches  the  Rio  Grande  Western  Railway  ; 
a  Utah  line  in  every  stem  and  branch,  switch,  rail  and 
tie  ;  a  Utah  line  in  every  whirr  of  wheels  and  whoop  of 
engine,  in  every  interest,  effort,  purpose  and  ambition. 
Though  it  leads  everywhere,  and  is  the  only  route  to  many  wondrous  regions, 
it  begins  and  ends  in  Utah,  except  the  one  long  arm  which  reaches  out  to 
clasp  hands  with  its  eastern  connections  at  Grand  Junction.  It  has  been  a 
potent  factor  in  the  advancement  of  the  territory,  and  has  built  itself  by  up- 
building Utah.  It  is  one  of  the  engineering  miracles  of  the  age.  It  cuts 
in  a  thousand  places,  the  rugged  backbone  of  the  continent.  It  traverses 
regions  where  none  but  a  madman,  or  a  genius  inspired,  would  ever  have 


dreamed  of  laying  a  track  for  even  a  circus  trick-mule  to  travel.  Its  trains 
spin  along  where  it  would  seem  almost  impossible  for  a  mountain  goat  to 
climb,  or  anything  without  wings  to  pass.  Its  tracks  double  and  cross 
themselves  like  the  paths  of  a  bird  in  the  air.  And  yet,  so  perfect  is  its 
engineering,  so  massive  and  so  admirable  its  construction,  and  so  ceaseless 
the  care  and  supervision  of  its  every  detail,  that  there  has  never  been  a 
serious  accident  on  its  lines.  Its  tracks  of  heavy  steel  rails,  laid  in  many 
places  on  a  bed  of  solid  granite,  are  patrolled  day  and  night  by  vigilant 
watchmen  ;  every  engine  is  inspected  at  regular  intervals  along  the  way, 
and  every  car-wheel  rigidly  tested.  So  that  travel  upon  it  is  really  safer 
than  on  the  prairie  roads  of  Illinois  and  Iowa,  where  accidents  do  now  and 
then  occur.  Here  —  never. 

The  Rio  Grande  Western  trains  are  as  perfect  and  as  elegant  in  all  their 
appointments  as  the  famous  New  York  Central  and  Pennsylvania  "Limited." 
Its  cars,  from  smokers  to  sleepers,  are  models  of  beauty  and  comfort,  including 


all  the  improvements  of  the  age.  Its  drawing- 
room  and  sleeping-cars  are  massive  in  build, 
richly  decorated  with  carving  and  inlaying  of 
various-colored  woods,  gilding  and  painting,  and 
costly  mirrors  and  curtains,  and  furnished  with 
luxurious  cushions,  marble  wash-basins  with  hot 
*™^*  and  cold  water,  snowy  towels,  and  every  conveni- 

ence of  first-class  hotels.  The  beds  are  as  clean  and  comfortable  as  those 
of  any  hotel  in  New  York,  Philadelphia,  or  Chicago  ;  and  the  wonder- 
weary  traveler  delightfully  dreams  over  two  hundred  and  fifty  miles  of  crag 
and  canyon,  cliff,  cataract,  precipice  and  desert,  without  a  jar  or  a  jolt. 

The  day  coaches  on  all  trains  are  built  as  strongly  and  with  as  much 
attention  to  artistic  effect  as  the  sleepers  or  parlor-cars.  Every  car  has  neat 
and  spacious  toilet-rooms,  with  lavatories  for  men 'and  women,  and  lounging 
and  smoking  rooms  like  those  of  the  sleeping-cars.  The  mail,  express  and 
baggage  cars  are  constructed  so  as  to  combine  the  greatest  possible  strength 
with  the  highest  facilities  for  the  speedy  handling  of  their  various  freight- 
age. All  cars  and  platforms  are  brilliantly  lighted  by  gas,  which  is  carried 
in  cylinders  underneath.  The  locomotives  are  models  of  strength  and  pon- 
derous beauty.  Each  weighs  130,000  pounds,  or  double  the  weight  of  the 
engines  in  general  use  a  few  years  ago,  and  every  detail  of  the  mechanism 
is  calculated  to  secure  the  greatest  attainable  power,  speed  and  safety. 
The  entire  effect  is  that  of  a  flying  train  of  palaces-on-wheels,  where  every 
man  is  a  sovereign  and  every  woman  is  a  queen — who  holds  either  a  first  or 
second  class  ticket.  There  are  no  changes  of  cars  between  Chicago,  Den- 
ver, Salt  Lake,  Ogden  and  San  Francisco,  except  for  passengers  who  wish 
to  take  in  the  magnificent  scenery  along  the  Denver  &  Rio  Grande  narrow- 
gauge  line.  They  change  at  Grand  Junction  by  simply  stepping  from  one 
car  to  another  at  the  union-depot. 

To  the  traveler  on  business  or  for  pleasure,  going  from  east  to  west  or  west 
to  east,  the  Rio  Grande  Western  Railway  offers  the  only  through  line  from 
Denver  to  Salt  Lake  City  that  traverses  the  grand  scenery  of  the  Colorado 
mountains  and  canyons,  and  gives  choice  of  three  famous  routes  :  By  the 
Denver  &  Rio  Grande  standard  gauge  through  the  Grand  River  canyons, 
and  by  Leadville,  Colorado  Springs,  Pike's  Peak  and  the  Mount  of  the  Holy 
Cross  ,  by  the  Denver  &  Rio  Grande  narrow  gauge  through  the  Black 
Canyon  of  the  Gunmson,  over  Marshall  Pass,  and  through  the  Royal  Gorge 
and  the  Grand  Canyon  of  the  Arkansas  ;  and  by  the  Colorado  Midland,  by 
Glenwood  Springs,  Hagerman  Tunnel,  South  Park,  Ute  Park,  Pike's  Peak 
and  Manitou.  To  the  freight  shipper  it  offers  as  short  a  line  and  as  quick 
time  as  any  other  road,  with  choice  of  seven  direct  connections  at  Denver, 
Colorado  Springs  and  Pueblo  :  the  Chicago,  Burlington  &  Quincy,  the  Rock 
Island,  the  Atchison,  Topeka  &  Santa  Fe,  the  Missouri  Pacific,  Union 


Pacific,  Kansas  Pacific,  and  the  Union  Pacific,  Denver  &  Gulf.  To  anybody 
and  everybody,  bound  from  anywhere  to  anywhere  else,  to  transcontinental 
tourists,  as  well  as  to  local  shippers  and  journeyers,  the  Rio  Grande  Western 
Railway,  controlled  and  managed  by  able,  progressive  and  liberal  men,  who 
stand  in  the  front  rank  of  their  profession,  offers  every  inducement  and 
accommodation  —  safe  track,  superb  trains,  good  service,  dainty  eating- 
houses,  quick  time,  close  connections  and  low  rates.  It  is  the  business 
man's  route  between  the  West  and  East.  It  is  the  artist's  and  tourist's 
route  to  all  that  is  sublimest  and  grandest  in  scenery  on  the  continent.  It 
is  the  sportsman's  route  to  mountains  and  forests  that  abound  with  bears, 
cougars  or  mountain  lions,  deer,  wolves  and  other  game  ;  and  lakes  and 
streams  that  swarm  with  speckled  trout.  In  one  region  along  the  line 
Milton  Lyon  and  his  partner,  old  trappers,  during  the  early  months  of  1891 
killed  thirty-five  bears,  including  black,  cinnamon  and  grizzly,  and  a  number 
of  cougars,  besides  all  other  game  ;  they  brought  in  eleven  bear  skins  to  the 
station  in  one  day.  It  is  the  homeseeker's  route  to  millions  on  millions  of 
acres  of  free  farming  and  grazing  lands.  It  is  the  stock-raiser's  route  to 
cattle-ranges  and  sheep-pastures  that  cost  nothing,  where  the  grass  never 
dies,  and  the  horizon  is  the  only  fence.  It  is  the  fortune-hunter's  route  to 
ten  thousand  bonanza  mines,  present  and  to  come.  It  is  the  invalid's  route 
to  one  of  God's  own  sanitariums,  where  every  breath  is  balm,  and  health  is 
universal  as  the  blessed  air  of  heaven. 

All  aboard  for  a  flying  trip  along  its  lines. 


57 


X. 


A    WONDERFUL   TOUR 


A    FLYING    TRIP    OVER    THE    LINES    OF    THE    Rio    GRANDE 
WESTERN,   WITH   GLIMPSES  OF  THE  COUNTRY. 


® 


GDEN  is  the  starting 
point  —  and  a  worthy 
one  for  such  a  jaunt — Ogden, 
the  picturesque  and  prosper- 
ous. In  the  delta  of  the 
Weber  and  Ogden  rivers,  on  a 
lofty  bench  of  the  Great  Salt  Lake,  the 
young  city  sits  enthroned  like  a  queen 
of  the  mountains  and  valleys.  Behind 
it  rise  the  majestic  Wasatch  mountains, 
in  front  gleam  the  blue  green  waters  of 
the  wondrous  inland  sea,  and  on  either 
hand  as  far  as  the  eye  can  reach  stretches  the  glorious  valley  with  its 
grain-fields  and  meadows,  its  orchards  and  vineyards,  gardens  and  groves. 
Ogden  grew  from  a  population  of  6,069,  m  1880,  to  14,919,  in  1890,  an  in- 
crease of  129  per  cent.,  and  it  has  nearly  20,000  in  1891.  Its  eighty  whole- 
sale houses  did  $7,181,000  of  business  in  1890,  and  its  bank  clearings  ran 
from  $250,000  to  $500,000  a  week.  Its  real  estate  transfers  during  the  year 
reached  the  amazing  aggregate  of  $9,978,277,  or  nearly  $850,000  a  month, 

58 


and  1,037  buildings  were  erected  at  a  cost  of  $1,769,719.  Its  factories  in- 
creased over  50  per  cent.,  and  the  year's  product  amounted  to  $1,538,430. 
It  has  seven  banks  with  a  combined  capital  of  about  $1,500,000.  Its 
post-office  handled  4,745,000  letters,  and  its  telegraph  offices  1,422,696 
messages  during  1890,  a  record  hardly  equaled  in  any  other  city  in  the 
world  of  the  same  population.  Ogden  has  water  works  with  a  capacity 


of  10,000,000  gallons  a  day,  twenty  miles  of  electric  street  railway,  elec- 
tric light,  gas  works  and  telephone.  It  has  many  costly  and  handsome 
public  and  private  buildings,  fine  public  schools  and  private  academies, 
including  a  military  institute.  The  territorial  reform  school  is  also  located 
here.  The  whole  surrounding  country  is  rich  in  mines  of  gold,  silver,  cop- 
per, lead  and  iron,  and  the  newly  discovered  bonanzas  of  La  Plata  are  almost 
at  the  doors  of  Ogden.  The  famous  Utah  Hot  Springs,  where  many  mar- 
velous cures  have  been  effected,  are  near  the  city,  and  a  charming  bathing 
resort  on  the  Salt  Lake  beach  is  in  plain  view  of  the  court-house.  Ogden  is 
growing  and  improving  at  race-horse  speed,  and  is  destined  to  become  one  of 

59 


the  most  important  cities  between  the  Missouri  river  and  the  Pacific  coast. 
From  its  magnificent  union  depot,  surpassing  anything  of  the  kind  in  Omaha, 
Minneapolis,  St.  Paul  or  St.  Louis,  the  superb  Rio  Grande  Western  train 
rolls  out  for  Denver  and  the  east. 

A  rush  of  eighteen  miles,  through  fields  waving  with  rich  harvests  and 
orchards  bending  under  their  burdens  of  fruit,  through  Hooper  and  Layton, 
and  it  passes  Kaysville  where  two  Mormon  farmers  recently  raised  a  hundred 
and  six  bushels  of  wheat  to  the  acre  and  sold  it,  measuring  that  number  of 
bushels  for  every  acre  they  had  in  cultivation,  to  the  great  Zion  store  in 
Salt  Lake  City.  Four  miles  further  to  Farmington,  where  the  spur  of  track 
runs  down  to  the  Lake  Park  Bathing  Beach  with  its  pavilions  and  piers,  bath- 
houses, verandas  and  promenades,  and  its  extensive  salt  works  ;  on  past 
Lake  Shore  Station,  where  tens  of  thousands  of  tons  of  salt  are  made  with- 
out cost  from  the  wondrous  lake  waters  ;  past  Wood's  Crossing  and  Hot 
Springs,  where  a  flood  of  almost  boiling  waters  pours  from  the  side  of  a 
granite  cliff,  as  full  of  healing  virtues  as  those  of  Arkansas  or  Carlsbad  or 
Baden  Baden  ;  on  amid  meadows  of  sweet-scented  alfalfa  and  orchards  of 
peaches  and  apricots,  nectarines,  apples  and  plums,  with  the  grand  Wasatch 
peaks  always  on  the  left  hand  and  the  azure  expanse  of  the  great  lake  on 
the -right  ;  and,  with  a  shrill  "  howdye-do  "  of  salutation  from  the  locomotive 
to  the  spires  and  minarets  of  Zion,  the  train  dashes  into  Salt  Lake  City,  the 
capital  of  Utah  and  of  Mormondom. 

With  engine  fresh  coaled  and  watered  and  wheels  all  newly  inspected,  it 
sweeps  on  between  long  avenues  of  shade  trees  and  past  charming  suburban 
homes  embowered  in  foliage,  fruit  and  flowers,  and  seven  miles  out  it  begins 
to  pass  the  great  smelters  at  Francklyn,  Germania  and  Bingham  Junction 
strung  along  the  track  for  four  miles.  They  reduce  about  75,000  tons  of 
silver  ores  a  year. 

At  Bingham  Junction,  one  branch  line  strikes  off  to  the  rich  Bingham 
mines  sixteen  miles  southwest.  Another  branch,  ten  miles  long,  runs  to 
Wasatch  at  the  mouth  of  Little  Cottonwood  Canyon,  where  all  the  white 
granite  for  the  Mormon  temple  in  Salt  Lake  City  was  quarried.  For  four 
miles  on  both  sides  the  canyon  is  walled  with  this  beautiful  stone.  From 
Wasatch  a  tramway  leads  to  Alta  where  the  famous  Emma  mine  is  located. 

The  main  line  train  halts  but  an  instant  at  Bingham  Junction,  and  speeds 
on  up  the  fertile  and  beautiful  Jordan  River  Valley,  past  Draper  and  Jordan 
Narrows,  and  after  a  run  of  twenty-one  miles  whirls  into  Lehi,  a  beautiful 
little  city  of  3,000  people,  with  all  its  houses  hidden  in  the  green  of  trees 
and  vines.  It  takes  its  name  from  Lehi,  according  to  The  Book  of  Mormon, 
the  ancestor  of  the  American  Indians.  The  country  around  it  is  like  a  vast 
garden.  Within  from  twenty  to  forty-five  miles  are  all  the  mines  of  Cotton- 
wood,  American  Fork,  Bingham  and  Tintic.  There  are  a  number  of  flourish- 
ing manufactories,  and  the  Utah  Beet  Sugar  Factory,  is  the  largest  concern 

60 


"of  the  kind  in  the 
United  States, 
the  plant  costing 
nearly   $500,000. 
Near  here,  where 
the  Jordan  River  flows 
out  of  Utah  Lake,  are 
hot    springs    of    great 
curative  power. 

On  four  miles  to  American  Fork,  a  pretty  town  of  2,500  people,  the  whole 
place,  like  every  other  in  this  region,  lost  in  fruit-trees  and  flowers.  Near 
it,  on  the  shores  of  beautiful  Utah  Lake,  is  a  favorite  picnic  and  camping 
ground.  A  $20,000  hotel  has  recently  been  built.  Here  start  the  wagon 
roads  to  American  Fork  mines,  about  twenty  miles'  away.  Four  miles 
further  and  Battle  Creek  is  passed,  and  a  further  whirl  of  nine  miles  brings 
Provo  into  view  —  and  a  charming  view  it  is.  A  city  of  5,000  people,  on  the 
shores  of  the  lovely  Utah  Lake,  with  the  mighty  wall  of  the  Wasatch  moun- 
tains as  a  background.  Handsome  buildings,  all  buried  in  their  wealth  of 
fruit-trees,  flowers  and  vines.  A  surrounding  country  that  is  a  vast  garden, 
teeming  with  every  variety  of  grain,  fruit'and  vegetable.  Here  is  the  largest 
woolen  mill  west  of  the  Missouri  River.  Its  goods  are  sold  in  nearly  every 

62 


state  and  territory  of  the  Union  ;  one  of  the  leading  business-houses  of 
Salt  Lake  City  sells  no  goods  but  those  made  here.  The  territorial  insane 
asylum,  which  stands  on  a  high  point  in  the  edge  of  the  place,  would  do 
credit  architecturally  to  any  city  of  any  state.  Brigham  Young  Academy, 
just  completed,  is  a  large  and  handsome  structure.  Provo,  during  1890, 
spent  $360,791  in  new  buildings.  Two  daily  papers  are  published  in  the 
city,  and  here  the  Rio  Grande  Western  Railway  crosses  the  Utah  Central. 

On,  with  a  whirr  of  flying  wheels,  six  miles  to  Springville,  where  the 
Tintic  Range  branch  of  the  Rio  Grande  Western  leaves  the  main  line,  and 
pushes  through  Spanish  Fork,  a  city  of  3,500  people  in  "a  land  flowing 
with  milk  and  honey,"  where  every  acre  is  a  garden.  The  city  put  nearly 
$60,000  in  new  buildings  in  1890,  has  flouring  mills,  a  foundry,  broom- 
factory  and  artesian  wells,  and  is  solidly  prosperous  in  all  its  industries. 
Vast  deposits  of  pure  alum  have  been  found  here. 

On  through  Payson  and  Goshen,  a  region  rich  in  all  agricultural  produc- 
tions. West  of  Goshen,  the  new  branch  line  enters  Pinon  Canyon,  and  runs 
for  ten  miles  through  as  wild  and  rugged  scenes  as  can  be  found  in  all  this 
region  of  scenic  wonders.  The  track  through  the  canyon  is  a  dizzy  puzzle 
in  engineering.  It  winds  and  climbs,  twists,  turns  and  wriggles,  and  at  last 
absolutely  crosses  itself  backward  and  forward,  tying  itself  into  a  loop  like 
a  double  bow-knot.  There  are  but  two  similar  track  tangles  in  the  United 
States,  one  in  California  and  the  other  in  Colorado.  Out  of  this  canyon 
labyrinth,  the  line  emerges  in  the  far-famed  Tintic  mining-camp  ;  and,  just 
on  beyond  that,  will  doubtless  ere  long  rush  its  iron-horse  into  the  newly 
discovered  Deep  Creek  bonanza  region,  whose  richness  is 
attracting  wide-spread  attention  now. 

Springville,  where  this  digression  left  the  main  line,  is  a 
shade-embowered  city  of  3,500  population,  surrounded  by  a 
region  as  rich  and  productive  as  the  sun  shines  on.  All 
grains,  grasses,  fruits  and  vegetables  grow  in  endless  pro- 
fusion. Streams  of  limpid  water  flow  through  the 


! 


streets.  About  $30,000  was  expended  in  1890  in  new  buildings,  and  the 
sales  of  merchandise  amounted  to  nearly  $450,000.  There  are  many  credit- 
able buildings,  public  and  private,  and  a  number  of  nourishing  industries, 
including  an  extensive  woolen-mill. 

On  four  miles,  to  Vista  and  through  Pole  Canyon  ;  and,  in  a  few  minutes, 
Castilla  Springs,  with  its  floods  of  healing  waters,  bursting  from  the  moun- 
tain's side,  is  reached.  There  are  baths  of  all  sorts  and  temperatures,  and  a 
great  swimming  pool,  and  any  disease  that  is  curable  by  thermal  waters  can 
be  relieved  here. 

A  brief  run  and  Thistle  Junction  is  reached,  where  the  San  Pete  Valley 
branch  of  the  Rio  Grande  Western  starts  toward  the  vast  mines  and  quar- 
ries, grainfields  and  fruit  gardens  that  lie  toward  the  south.  Glance  for  a 
moment  down  this  branch  line.  Two  miles  from  Thistle  is  Asphaltum 
station,  where  there  is  a  bed  of  nearly  pure  asphaltum,  covering  a  square 
mile,  and  from  eight  to  fourteen  feet  thick.  Six  miles  further,  and  at  Nebo 
a  view  is  caught  of  Mount  Nebo,  one  of  the  tallest  and  grandest  peaks  in 
Utah,  snow-capped  all  the  year.  About  a  mile  below  Nebo  the  road 
enters  the  Indian  Reservation,  and  six  miles  onward  is  Indianola,  around 
which  cluster  the  adobe  houses  and  tepees  of  a  branch  of  the  great  Ute 
tribe,  whence  Utah  has  its  name.  They  do  a  little  farming  and  stock-rais- 
ing, and  a  good  deal  of  hunting  and  fishing,  and,  all  things  considered,  are 
generally  doing  well.  Whirling  on  through  twenty  miles  of  pastures  and 
farms,  past  Hilltop  and  Milburn,  at  Fairview  a  glorious  view  of  the  San 
Pete  valley,  "  the  granary  of  Utah,"  bursts  upon  the  enchanted  eye.  The 
whole  country  for  fifty  miles  is  a  mingling  of  field  and  garden.  Only  two 
miles  more,  and  the  train  sweeps  into  Mount  Pleasant,  nestled  in  peach  and 
apricot,  apple,  pear  and  plum  trees,  all  bowed  down  with  their  loads  of  fruit. 
The  town  stands  at  the  foot  of  the  mountain  on  a  commanding  site.  It  has 
about  3,000  population,  a  flouring-mill  and  planing  mill,  and  is  the  seat  of 
Wasatch  Academy,  a  Presbyterian  school  of  some  repute.  Five  miles  in 
twelve  minutes,  and  Spring  City  is  passed,  with  great  masses  of  snow-crowned 
mountains  east  and  southeast  of  it  ;  and,  in  ten  miles  more,  Ephraim's 
bowers  of  fruit  and  shade  are  entered.  In  a  population  of  2,200,  there  are 
800  school  children,  besides  all  those  too  young  for  schooling.  A  new  depot, 
new  hotel  and  many  other  new  buildings  tell  the  story  of  prosperity. 

A  dash  of  six  miles  onward,  and  Manti  is  reached,  with  2,300  people,  and 
hardly  a  poor  man  among  them.  Here,  at  the  top  of  four  lofty  terraces 
hewn  from  the  mountain  side,  stands  the  magnificent  Mormon  temple,  which 
has  cost  $2,500,000,  and  is  only  second  to  the  one  in  Salt  Lake  City.  It  is 
nearly  two  hundred  feet  long,  one  hundred  wide  and  one  hundred  high,  with 
massive  towers  at  each  end  rising  one  hundred  and  seventy-five  feet  in  the 
air.  It  is  built  of  snow-white  oolite,  quarried  out  of  the  site  on  which  it 
stands,  and  the  whole  workmanship  is  exquisite.  It  can  be  plainly  seen  for 

66 


forty  miles  up  and  down  the  valley.  A  hot  spring,  on  the  edge  of  the  town, 
pours  out  a  hundred  cubic  feet  a  minute  of  water  gifted  with  remarkable 
medicinal  qualities.  Just  below  Manti  are  the  strange  "  Saleratus  Beds/' 
where  for  two  miles  or  more  the  road  runs  through  vast  deposits  of  soda 
pure  enough  for  cooking  purposes.  It  was  near  Manti  that  a  railroad  right- 
of-way  man  came  across  a  Mormon  Mr.  Olson,  who  had  four  wives,  all 
named  Anna.  The  deeds  to  the  right-of-way  had  to  be  signed  by  the  entire 
lour  Mrs.  Anna  Olsons. 

The  train  rushes  on  through  a  continuous  succession  of  grainfields  and 
orchards.  Sterling,  Gunnison  and  Willow  Creek  are  passed,  the  Sevier  Val- 
ley is  entered,  and  the  locomotive  screams  its  greeting  to  Salina,  the  present 
terminus  of  the  branch.  Just  back  of  the  town  are  mountains  of  rock  salt, 
much  of  it  as  clear  as  crystal,  and  absolutely  pure.  Millions  on  millions  of 
tons  of  it  can  be  blasted  out  as  cheap  as  dirt.  About  a  mile  south  of  these 
mountainous  monuments  to  the  memory  of  Lot's  wife  is  a  mountain  of 
almost  pure  gypsum,  and  there  is  kaolin  enough  to  furnish  all  the  potteries 
and  candy-makers  of  the  world.  The  whole  region  abounds  with  game  and 
fish. 

From  Salina,  a  stage-ride,  that  condenses  in  a  few  hours  grandeur  and 
variety  and  novelty  enough  to  glorify  all  the  memories  of  the  most  monot- 
onous and  commonplace  life,  takes  one  into  the  great  canyons  of  the  Colo- 
rado, where  God  Almighty  Himself  seems  to  have  finished  His  labors  in  scenic 
magnificence,  feeling  that  there  was  nothing  more  for  even  Omnipotence  to 
do  for  the  delight  of  human  eye  and  soul.  In  Marble  Canyon,  the  walls  of 
solid  marble,  beautiful  as  ever  sculptor's  chisel  wrought  into  an  immortality 
of  genius,  tower  thousands  on  thousands  of  feet  heavenward  on  either  hand  ; 
and  along  the  Vermillion  Cliffs,  the  rainbow  itself  fades,  by  contrast  with  the 
myriads  of  dazzling  tints  and  hues,  into  a  colorless  arch  of  shamefaced  fog. 

The  San  Pete  Valley  which  begins  about  thirty  miles  north  of  Manti, 
extends  for  fifty  miles  southward,  an  unbroken  vision  of  fertility  and  beauty. 
Six  miles  north  of  Salina  it  merges  into  the  glorious  valley  of  the  Sevier, 
which  runs  forty  miles  south  to  the  mouth  of  Clear  Creek  Canyon, 
leading  to  the  new  and  much-talked-of  Marysvale  mines.  Below  Marysvale 
begins  another  valley  of  wonderful  wealth,  that  extends  to  the  cotton  and 
semi-tropical  'fruit  lands  of  Southern  Utah.  Is  the  Rio  Grande  Western 
going  to  push  its  long  arms  of  iron  and  steel  into  these  new  empires  of  rich 
fruitage  and  freightage  ?  It  would  be  safe  to  lay  wagers  upon  it. 

But  back  to  Thistle,  to  resume  the  interrupted  main  line  jaunt.  Thistle 
has  immense  quantities  of  fine  building  stone.  On,  amid  crags  and  canyons  ; 
through  Red  Narrows,  Mill  Fork  and  Clear  Creek  ;  past  Soldier  Summit, 
where  one  of  Albert  Sidney  Johnston's  soldiers  in  the  "  Mormon  War  "  lies 
buried  nearly  10,000  feet  above  the  level  of  the  sea.  Near  Soldier  Summit, 
ozokerite  or  mineral  wax  is  found.  Seven  miles  further,  and  Pleasant  Valley 

68 


Junction  is  reached,  whence  a  branch  road,  eighteen  miles  in  length,  leads 
to  the  Pleasant  Valley  coal-mines,  where  hundreds  of  thousands  of  tons  of 
black  diamonds  are  annually  mined.  At  Hale's  station  on  the  coal  branch, 
nine  miles  from  the  Junction,  the  Rio  Grande  Western  company  cuts  all 
its  supplies  of  ice  on  Fish  creek,  a  stream  clear  as  crystal  and  swarming 
with  trout. 

From  Pleasant  Valley  Junction  to  Kyune  on  the  main  line  is  six  miles,  and 
the  whole  distance  is  through  mountains  of  the  finest  quality  of  gray  sand- 
stone, which  several  strong  companies  are  quarrying  and  shipping.  The 
name  of  Kyune  originated  with  a  shiftless  fellow  who,  in  hunting,  some 
years  ago,  came  across  "  a  strange  varmint "  where  the  station  now  stands. 
He  described  it  as  a  "  kind  of  a  ky-une  lookin'  critter,"  meaning  a  sort  of 
cross  between  a  coyote  and  a  coon  —  and  the  name  stuck.  On,  nine  miles 
through  the  glorious  canyon  of  Price  river,  where  every  turn  of  the  track 
reveals  scenes  but  little  less  grand  and  picturesque  than  those  of  the  Grand 
Canyon  of  the  Arkansas.  Precipices  of  stone,  thousands  of  feet  high,  carved 
and  twisted,  by  ages  of  floods  and  storms,  into  all  weird  and  fantastic  shapes 
that  the  maddest  imagination  can  conceive  ;  castles,  cathedrals,  fortresses, 
towers  and  spires,  animals,  birds  and  reptiles,  all  on  a  scale  so  colossal  that 
the  mightiest  structures  of  men  are  dwarfed,  by  contrast — for  comparison 
there  is  none  —  to  sick  children's  Noah's  Arks,  with  elephants  an  inch  high 
and  giraffes  scarcely  larger  than  full-grown  Jersey  mosquitoes.  The  flying 
train  passes  out  of  the  canyon  at  Castle  Gate,  where  two  gigantic  pillars  of 
stone,  towering  nearly  to  the  clouds,  form  a  gateway  that  has  been  pictured 
by  artists  and  daubers  throughout  the  world.  Here  are  the  great  Castle 
Gate  coal-mines  and  coking-works,  which  have  already  been  mentioned. 
Three  miles  eastward  is  Helper  station,  where  a  "  helper  "  engine  is  attached 
to  trains  coming  west  to  help  them  over  the  steep  grades  of  Price  Canyon. 
Seven  miles  onward  to  Price  Station,  where  Price  river  is 
crossed.  It  is  the  shipping  point  for  all  the  country 
hundred  and  fift  miles  of  the  road  on  the 


north,  including  two  Indian  Reservations  and  a  military  post,  Fort  Thorn- 
burg  ;  and  for  a  region  extending  for  fifty  miles  south  of  the  town.  It 
handles  a  great  deal  of  live  stock,  and  ships  the  asphaltum  of  the  Fort 
Duchesne  company.  It  is  the  starting  point  of  daily  stage  lines  to  many 
places  north  and  south  of  the  railroad,  and  boasts  of  a  lively  newspaper 
as  one  of  its  pet  institutions.  On  through  Huntington  and  Farnham, 
a  twelve-mile-long  strip  of  green  fertility  about  two  miles  wide,  walled  in 
by  desert.  Wherever  water  touches  the  soil,  trees,  rich  harvest-fields, 
meadows  of  alfalfa,  grass  waist-high  to  the  cattle,  fruit  and  flowers.  Sunny- 
side  is  a  narrow  oasis. "  At  Cedar  the  whole  desert  as  far  as  the  eye  can 
reach  is  dotted  with  straggling  clumps  of  Spanish  cedar  or  mountain  ma- 
hogany, which  grows  in  some  mysterious  way  where  even  sagebrush  gives 
up  disheartened.  "  Grassy,"  seven  miles  further  east,  seems  to  take  its 
name  from  the  fact  that  there  is  not  a  blade  of  grass  within  a  mile  of  it. 
Lower  Crossing  of  Price  river  is  a  stock-shipping  point.  About  twenty- 
five  miles  away  in  the  wild  Book  Mountains  begins  the  Range  Valley, 
eighty  miles  long  by  fifteen  wide,  wonderfully  fertile  and  watered  by  moun- 
tain streams,  but  absolutely  inaccessible  except  by  a  hazardous  mule  or  burro 
trail.  It  is  used  by  the  Range  Valley  Cattle  Company  as  a  ranch,  said  to  be 
the  most  extensive  in  Utah.  The  whole  region  abounds  with  bear,  deer, 
mountain  lions  or  cougars,  lynxes,  wolves  and  other  game,  and  all  the  streams 
swarm  with  speckled  trout.  Six  miles  further  east  is  Green  River  Station, 
one  of  the  prettiest  spots  on  the  whole  line,  an  oasis  of  verdure  and  bloom 
in  a  wide-spreading  desert.  It  is  just  west  of  the  long  bridge  over  Green 
river.  The  Rio  Grande  Western  has  an  elegant  hotel  here,  called  the  'Palmer 
House,  in  honor  of  the  president  of  the  company.  It  is  surrounded  by  green 
lawns,  shade-trees,  gardens  and  fruit.  Fountains  play  in  a  charming  little 
park  in  front  of  the  house,  although  every  drop  of  water  has  to  be  piped 
and  pumped  from  the  river.  The  house  is  admirably  kept,  and  its  table  is 
not  surpassed  at  any  railroad  station  in  the  country. 

Eight  miles  east  of  Green  River,  '*  Solitude  "  is  well  named.  On  through 
nineteen  miles  of  desert,  the  only  semblance  of  green  is  an  occasional  patch 
of  dwarfed  and  brownish  sage-brush.  It  is  so  bare  and  barren  that  it  would 
seem  as  though  the  very  ravens  that  solemnly  stalk  around  amid  its  desola- 
tion would  have  to  carry  their  own  canteens  and  haversacks,  as  Phil.  Sheri- 
dan said  the  crows  would  have  to  do  in  the  Shenandoah  Valley.  And  yet 
there  is  a  wondrous  fascination  about  it.  There  is  a  suggestion  of  the  Great 
Sahara.  Lew  Wallace's  marvelous  description  of  the  desert  in  "  Ben  Hur  " 
rises  before  the  eye  of  memory.  And  then  this  American  desert  is  walled 
in  on  both  sides  by  such  weirdly,  wondrously  fantastic  mountains  that  it  is 
always  interesting  to  the  point  of  fascination.  In  some  places  the  cliffs  that 
border  it  are  first  low,  bare  mounds;  then  higher  ranges  level  along  the  top; 
then  mighty  precipices  striped  horizontally  with  white,  yellow,  dark-red  and 

70 


purple  strata,  the  layers  as  regular  as  though  painted,  and  the  vast  masses 
cut  by  deep  canyons  into  millions  of  strange  shapes.  Near  Lower  Crossing, 
off  to  the  eastward,  there  is  a  figure  of  an  elephant  five  hundred  feet  long 
lying  down,  with  feet,  legs,  ears  and  trunk  as  perfect  as  though  hewn  by 
Titanic  sculptors.  In  the  same  region,  on  a  terraced  foundation  a  thousand 
feet  high,  there  is  a  vast  temple  a  half  mile  long  and  five  hundred  feet  high, 
with  a  mighty  dome  in  the  centre  rising  two  hundred  feet  higher  ;  while 
away  off,  ten  or  fifteen  miles  west,  there  is  a  far  larger  structure,  double 
domed,  one  dome  being  pyramidal  and  the  other  conical.  Between  Crescent 
and  Thompson's,  away  off  to  the  west  or  southwest,  looms  up  a  great  city 
of  red  sandstone  on  top  of  a  lofty  mountain.  Buildings,  chimneys,  towers 
and  spires  are  all  so  perfect  that  it  is  almost  impossible  to  believe  that  the 
genii  or  the  fairies  have  not  reared  a  real  city  as  large  at  least  as  Chicago 
in  this  wild  realm  of  fantasy.  Twenty-five  miles  away,  on  the  top  of  a  lofty 
mountain  range,  stands  an  exact  counterpart  of  the  Capitol  at  Washington 
that  must  be  a  mile  in  length  and  from  five  hundred  to  a  thousand  feet  in 
height  to  show  as  it  does  at  so  great  a  distance. 

Thompson's  Springs,  twenty-seven  miles  east  of  Green  River,  is  another 
oasis  of  trees  and  grass,  grain  and  flowers.  The  water  is  piped  four  miles 
from  a  spring  in  the  canyon.  The  place  is  a  shipping-point  for  cattle  from 
the  distant  ranches.  There  is  abundance  of  coal  and  asphaltum  in  the 
neighborhood,  but  neither  has  ever  been  worked.  On  through  the  moun- 
tain-walled desert,  past  Sager's  and  Whitehouse  and  Cisco  ;  and  Agate  is 
reached,  where  thousands  of  acres  are  covered  with  beautiful  water-agates 
and  carnelians.  Cottonwood  is  passed,  and  at  Westwater  the  train  plunges 
into  one  of  the  wildest  and  grandest  canyons  on  the  line.  For  fifteen  miles 
of  wonder  Nature  seems  to  have  cut  her  weirdest  capers.  Between  West- 
water  and  Utaline,  across  Grand  River,  along  the  dizzy  brink  of  which  the 
train  is  flying,  is  a  vast  cavern  in  a  blood-red  cliff.  It  seems  a  fit  temple  for 
the  mighty  gods  and  other  queeriosities,  whose  giant  effigies,  carved  in 
granite  and  red  sandstone,  stand  in  solemn,  silent  array  along  a  thousand 
strange  cliffs  and  mountain-tops.  Near  Utaline,  where  the  Rio  Grande 
Western,  for  the  only  time  in  all  its  wanderings,  crosses  the  boundary-line 
of  Utah,  and  enters  Colorado,  off  far  to  the  southward,  through  a  break  in 
the  wall  of  mountains,  another  range  appears,  crowned  with  a  hundred  or 
more  gigantic  copies  of  the  Great  Pyramid  of  Ghizeh,  magnified  a  score  of 
times.  Across  the  river  near  Ruby,  on  the  point  of  a  mountain  sits  a  huge 
Arab,  with  a  dark-stained  red  sandstone  face,  and  a  white  stone  turban  and 
burnous  ;  while  behind  him  stands  a  perfect  dromedary  two  hundred  feet 
high,  with  stony  eyes  apparently  fixed  upon  his  mighty  master.  Not  more 
than  a  mile  away,  a  procession  of  gigantic  Egyptian  priests,  robed  and  gat- 
landed,  are  marching  down  the  precipice,  the  smallest  of  them  a  hundred 
feet  tall.  Past  Ruby,  and  the  canyon  opens  out  into  desert  again,  bounded 

7i 


p  near  the  mountains  cragqy  crest, 
"       mighty  nr\ogu!s  strong  and  proud: 
snow  drifts  beating  gainst  their  breas 
pointed  pilots  pierce  the  cloud. 
.  mountains -seerning  little. hills- 
Lrqboss  the  spreading  plain  below. 
And  rivers  look  like  laughing   rills 
As  down  the  distant  vale   they  flow. 


:Here  in°a  wierd  cold -wintry  £rave 

Wrapped  117  a -marble  sriroud  o|  snow. 
'With  not  a  ripple  not  a  wave 
Cairn iy  sleeps  Loch  Ivanhoe. 
But  with  the  corninQ  of  trie  spring 
Trie:  Mttle  flowers  jYi'!!, bud  and  blow 
And  _gladsonie  sonQs  the  birds  wi 
.  Alorjg  t^e  bariRs  "bj  ivannoe. 


on  both  sides  still  by  the  mountains  swarming  with  weird,  fantastic  shapes. 
The  train  flies  on  past  Crevasse  ;  and  Fruita,  where  water's  magical  touch 
has  transformed  the  desert  into  a  garden  of  flowers  and  fruit,  and  made  the 
station  a  great  shipping-point  of  peaches,  apricots,  apples,  pears  and  melons. 
Roan  is  left  behind,  and  in  a  few  minutes  more  Grand  Junction  is  reached. 
It  is  a  city  of  about  4,000  people,  tastefully  laid  out  and  well  built.  It  has 
electric  light,  Holly  water-works,  street-cars,  good  schools,  churches  of  all  the 
leading  denominations,  and  daily  papers  chuck-full  of  boom  spirit.  Just 
back  of  the  city,  the  whole  face  of  the  mountains  assumes  the  exact  shape  of 
vast  white-stone  curtains,  a  thousand  feet  long,  fluted  and  plaited,  and  sur- 
mounted by  quaintly  carved  lambrequins  of  red  sandstone  fifty  or  a  hundred 
feet  high.  Grand  Junction,  as  its  name  denotes,  is  a  junctional  point  of 
both  rivers  and  railroads.  Here  the  Grand  and  the  Gunnison  rivers  unite  ; 
and  here  the  east-bound  journeyer  has  choice  of  three  routes,  all  abounding 
in  magnificent  scenery,  world-famous  mines  of  gold  and  silver,  glorious 
health  and  pleasure  resorts,  and  unsurpassed  hunting  and  fishing  ;  and  all 
superbly  equipped,  and  furnishing  every  comfort,  convenience  and  luxury, 
that  the  highest  perfection  of  railroading  can  suggest. 

1.  The  Denver  &  Rio  Grande  standard-gauge  line  whirls  him  through 
all  the  wild  glories  of  the  Grand  River  Canyons  ;  and  past  the  famous  Rock 
Creek,  Red  Cliff  and  Belden  mines,  which  in  rugged  picturesqueness  surpass 
the  dizziest  habitations  of  Alpine  cliff-dwellers.     It  takes  him  through  Lead- 
ville,  one  of  the  mining  wonders  of  the  ages  ;  a  camp  12,000  feet  above  the 
low  level  of  the  sea,  that  in  ten  years  produced  nearly  $160,000,000  in  gold, 
silver,  copper  and  lead  ;  and  that  turned  out  $13,684,000  in  1889.     It  spins 
him  through  the  Grand  Canyon  of  the  Arkansas  and  the  Royal  Gorge,  that 
all  human  language  has  been  bankrupted  trying  to  describe  ;  past  Colorado 
Springs,  where  a  beautiful   young  city  of   12,000   people  has  risen,  like  a 
magic  exhalation,  in  a  day,  around  wondrous  fountains  of  healing  ;    under 
the  shadows  of  Pike's  Peak,  with  its  crown  of  everlasting  snow,  and  its 
marvelous   cogwheel    railroad,  a  trip  over  which  is  worthy  of   a  century's 
remembrance  ;    and  into   Denver,   the  proud  "  Queen  City  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains,"  whose  history  lays  all  romance  flat  upon  its  back,  and  makes 
the  most  gorgeous  tales  of  genii  and  fairies  seem  commonplace  and  tame. 

2.  Or,  from  Grand  Junction,  the  traveler  can  take  the  far-famed   Den- 
ver &  Rio  Grande  narrow-gauge  line,  which  condenses  in  a  four-hundred- 
and-twenty-five  mile  run  grand  and  varied  scenery  enough  to  have  rendered 
the   world  picturesque,  if  God  Almighty  had   made  it  everywhere  else  a 
desert  plain.     The  savage  grandeur  and  beauty  of  the  Black  Canyon  of  the 
Gunnison  ;  of  Marshall  Pass,  where  the  road  winds  sixty-five  miles  to  travel 
thirteen,  and  where  one  can  look  back  over  eight  tracks,  all  at  different 
heights  ;  of  the  Grand  Canyon  of  the  Arkansas  and  the  Royal  Gorge,  defy 
all  genius  of  tongue  or  pen,  brush  or  pencil  to  depict  them. 

75 


3-  Last,  but  far  from  least  in  interest  or  importance,  the  Colorado  Mid- 
land, with  a  superb  track,  and  trains  perfect  in  every  detail,  will  send  the 
eastward-journeying  pilgrim  flying  from  Grand  Junction,  past  Glenwood 
-Springs,  with  its  glorious  fountains  and  baths  ;  through  Red 
Rock  Canyon  ;  past  the  majestic  Seven  Castles  ;  through 
e,  with  its  labyrinth  of  savage  grotesqueries  ; 
:  exquisite  Loch  Ivanhoe,  a  liquid  jewel  on 
the  rocky  bosom  of  giant  ruggedness  ;  and 
through  Hagerman  Tunnel,  11,528  feet,  or 
more  than  two  miles  above  the  level  of  the 
sea,  leaving  great  masses  of  snowy  clouds 
far  below.  The  train  speeds  on  through 
Leadville  and  Buena  Vista  ;  winds  around 
Gold  Hill,  where  Bierstadt  sketched  his 
great  picture,  "  The  Heart  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains  ;  "  dashes  through  South  Park, 
Granite  Canyon  and  Summit  Park  ;  past 
picturesque  and  beautiful  Green  Mountain 
Falls,  a  fashionable  summer  sauntering- 
place  ;  around  the  foot  of  Pike's  Peak  ; 
past  the  Garden  of  the  Gods  ;  through 
Manitou,  with  its  famous  springs  and  cav- 
erns, its  half-hundred  hotels  and  its  swarms 
of  summer  guests  from  every  region  of  the 
globe  ;  through  Colorado  Springs  ;  and  into  Denver  — 
into  whose  royal  borders,  as  into  those  of  Imperial  Rome,  "  all 
roads  lead  " — in  the  Rocky  Mountain  Realms. 

It  is  a  trip  to  be  remembered  with  profit  and  delight  as  long  as  life  and 
memory  last,  even  though  one  should  live  to  discount  Methuselah  as  a 
kitten.  It  is  an  unbroken  eight-hundred-mile-long  panorama  of  all  that  is 
grandest  and  weirdest,  most  sublime  and  beautiful  in  Nature's  handiwork  ; 
Jehovah's  artistic  masterpieces  on  the  most  stupendous  scale.  Mountains, 
whose  heads  are  crowned  with  the  snows  of  untold  ages,  while  their  feet  are 
lost  in  the  verdure  and  bloom  of  everlasting  summer  gardens.  Rocks, 
thousands  on  thousands  of  feet  high,  and  of  every  tint  and  hue,  from  white 
and  black  and  brown  to  pink  and  blue,  golden,  orange  and  blood-red, 
carved  and  chiseled  by  the  omnipotent  fingers  of  whirlpools  and  eddies  and 
rushing  floods  into  gigantic  sculptures  that  dwarf  all  the  sphynxes  and  pyra- 
mids, obelisks,  arches,  domes  and  towers  of  men  to  puny  babies'  playthings. 
Mighty  rivers,  as  large  as  the  upper  Mississippi  or  Ohio,  tumbling  and  plung- 
ing and  kicking  up  their  liquid  heels  like  the  maddest  and  giddiest  trout 
brooks.  Peaks,  whose  crests  are  wreathed  with  snowy  clouds  ;  and  canyons, 
whose  fathomless,  yawning  glooms  lay  an  unwonted  spell  of  decent  silence 

76 


on  even  the  most  flippant  average  fashionable  tourist  gazer.  Cataracts  and 
cascades,  whose  wild,  leaping  waters  are  churned  and  dashed  into  foam  and 
spray  and  feathery  mist  long  before  they  strike  the  stony  basins  dizzy  depths 
below  ;  while  myriads  of  irises  and  rainbows  dance  in  every  gorge  where  a 
straggling  sunbeam  finds  its  lucent  way.  And  deserts  weird  and  desolate  as 
the  Great  Sahara,  looking  as  though  the  ocean  had  been  swept  by  a  million 
cyclones  and  whirlwinds,  and  in  the  midst  of  the  awful  commotion  had 
suddenly  petrified  in  eternal  loneliness  of  alkali  and  sand. 

All  the  boasted  mountain  scenery,  from  the  New  Hampshire  "  Notch  "  to 
far-famed  •'  Lookout,"  where  the  historic  "  Battle  above  the  Clouds  "  never 
took  place,  would  look  like  ant-hills  and  pig-troughs  in  any  hundred  miles  of 
the  Utah  and  Colorado  Rockies  —  the  only  Real  Wonderland,  with  the 
"  R.  W."  blown  in  the  glass,  of  the  United-Statian  part  of  the  new  world. 
Compared  with  a  thousand  places  along  the  Rio  Grande  Western  route,  all 
such  much-advertised  scenes  as  the  Horseshoe  Curve,  the  Bridge  across  the 
Potomac  at  Harper's  Ferry,  the  New  River  Rapids  and  the  Hawk's  Nest, 
and  the  would-be  wildest  little  Adirondack  crags  and  glens  and  gullies, 
grow  tame  as  tennis  courts  or  croquet  grounds.  All  the  rocks  and  ripples, 
cliffs  and  gulches  of  the  2o,ooo-annual-visitored  Dells  of  the  Wisconsin 
could  be  lost  beyond  the  power  of  the  keenest-eyed  buzzard  that  wears 
feathers  to  find  them  in  this  land  of  Vast  Picturesques.  The  whole  Alle- 
ghany  and  Blue  Ridge  systems  of  mountains  would  look  like  a  prairie-dog 
town  anywhere  among  the  glacier-capped  Sierras  of  Utah  and  Colorado. 
The  Alps  themselves  would  dwindle  by  contrast.  For  miles  at  a  stretch 
every  foot  of  the  railroad  track  had  to  be  blasted  from  the  solid  granite  face 
of  precipices  that  touch  the  clouds,  along  the  dizzifying  margin  of  savage 
torrents  that  have  raged  and  roared  and  foamed  for  ages  in  vain  attempts 
to  cleave  for  themselves  a  broader  pathway  to  the  far-off  seas.  The  Rio 
Grande  Western  trains  are  often  wrapped  in  clouds,  and  sometimes  fly  along 
for  miles  above  the  fleecy  flounces  of  the  skies  ;  but  the  track,  like  the  house 
of  the  scriptural  wise  man,  is  "builded  on  a  rock,"  and  /'/  is  absolutely  safe. 
It  never  had  an  accident,  and  with  its  perfect  system  of  track  and  car  and 
engine  inspection,  it  probably  never  will.  It  is  The  Grand  Safe  and  Scenic 
Route  of  the  World. 


XL 

GREAT    SALT    LAKE. 


'HE    DEAD    SEA    OF    AMERICA  —  A    WATERY    MAGAZINE    OF 
INFINITE  RICHES — INCOMPARABLE  SEA  BATHING. 


HE  MOST  wonderful  feature  of  all  this  wonderland 
tour,  the  mightiest  marvel  of  all-marvelous  Utah, 
an  ocean  of  majestic  mystery  clad  in  beauty  divine, 
is  Great  Salt  Lake,  the  American  Dead  Sea. 
Among  all  earth's  weird  wonders  in  water  it  has 
but  one  rival  or  peer  —  the  miracle-made  sea  whose 
waves  of  doom  and  oblivion  roll  over  Sodom  and 
Gomorrah,  the  Chicagos  of  forty  centuries  ago.  Think  of  a  lake  from 
twenty-five  hundred  to  three  thousand  square  miles  in  area,  lying  a  thou- 
sand miles  inland,  at  an  altitude  of  four  thousand,  two  hundred  and  fifty 
feet  above  the  sea  level,  whose  waters  are  six  times  as  salt  as  those  of  the 
ocean  ;  and,  while  it  has  no  outlet,  four  large  rivers  pouring  their  ceaseless 
floods  of  fresh  water  into  it  without  raising  its  mysterious  surface  a  frac- 
tion of  an  inch,  or  ever  diminishing,  so  far  as  chemical  analysis  can  deter- 
mine, its  indescribable  saltiness.  Where  does  all  the  water  go  ?  Where 
does  all  the  salt,  that  no  streams  can  freshen,  come  from  ?  Where  are  the 
vast  saline  magazines  from  which  it  draws  its  everlasting  supplies  ?  One 
may  stand  upon  its  shores  and  ask  a  thousand  such  questions,  but  no 
answer  comes  from  its  mysterious  depths,  in  which  nothing  lives  but  death 
and  silence. 

When,  in  February,  1846,  twenty  thousand  Mormons,  under  the  leadership 
of  Brigham  Young,  started  from  Nauvoo,  Illinois,  on  their  two-thousand-mile 
pilgrimage  through  the  trackless  wilderness  of  the  American  West,  they  pro- 
claimed themselves  the  modern  Israel  in  search  of  the  promised  land.  It 
was  a  strange  fate,  or  destiny,  or  Providence,  that  led  them  to  a  region  so 
similar  to  the  "  Land  of  Promise  "  of  Israel  of  old.  There,  the  lake  of  Gen- 
nesaret,  or  sea  of  Galilee,  was  fresh  water  and  full  of  fish.  The  Jordan 
River  flowed  out  of  it  and  emptied  into  the  Dead  Sea,  which  is  so  salt  and 

79 


acrid  that  no  living  thing  is  found  in  its  waters.  Here,  Provo  or  Utah  Lake 
is  fresh  and  sweet,  and  its  limpid  waters  swarm  with  speckled  trout  and  other 
fish  as  savory  as  any  that  strained  the  nets  of  Peter,  James  and  John.  Out 
of  it  flows  the  Mormon  River  Jordan,  and  after  rambling  for  forty  or  fifty 
miles  through  orchards  and  meadows,  grain  fields  and  gardens,  pours  its  sil- 
very tide  into  Great  Salt  Lake,  the  saltiest  body  of  water  on  the  globe,  sur- 
passing even  its  Judean  counterpart  by  one  and  a  half  per  cent.  In  the  Holy 
Land  the  Jordan  flows  from  north  to  south,  while  the  Utah  Jordan  flows 
from  south  to  north.  Mount  Nebo  stood  like  a  giant  sentinel  overlooking 
the  ancient  "  land  flowing  with  milk  and  honey,"  and  here  Mount  Nebo,  lift- 
ing its  crown  of  eternal  snow  twelve  thousand  feet  heavenward,  stands  guard 
forever  over  a  fairer  Canaan  than  Moses  viewed,  but  never  entered. 

Salt  Lake  was  once  as  large  as  Lake  Huron,  and  was  over  a  thousand 
feet  deep.  Its  former  benches  and  the  marks  of  its  olden  wave-plashings 
are  as  plain  upon  the  mountain-benches  as  though  traced  but  yesterday.  It 
is  now  about  a  hundred  miles  long,  with  an  average  width  of  from  twenty- 
five  to  thirty  miles.  It  is  from  fifty  to  sixty  miles  wide  in  some  places,  and 
its  greatest  depth  is  about  sixty  feet.  Its  waters  contain  eighteen  per  cent. 
of  solid  matter,  mostly  salt  and  soda,  with  small  proportions  of  sulphur, 
magnesia,  calcium,  chlorine,  bromine,  potassium,  lithia  and  boracic  acid. 
The  Asiatic  Dead  Sea  water  contains  twenty-three  per  cent,  of  solids,  includ- 
ing less  salt  and  soda  and  much  more  magnesia,  calcium  and  potassium  than 
Salt  Lake.  Atlantic  Ocean  water  holds  but  3.5  per  cent,  of  solid  material, 
of  which  salt  constitutes  2.6  per  cent.  Hundreds  of  thousands  of  tons  of 
salt  are  made  by  natural  evaporation  along  the  shores  of  the  lake,  and  at 
one  place  near  Salt  Lake  City  a  windy  night  never  fails  to  pile  up  many 
tons  of  soda,  eliminated  by  the  movement  of  the  waves. 

Compared  with  this  vast  liquid  treasure-house  of  riches,  the  greatest 
bonanza  mines  of  Utah  or  of  the  United  States  dwindle  to  blind  beggars' 
penny  boxes.  Take  out  your  pencil  and  do  a  little  figuring.  Figures,  it  is 
said,  will  not  lie,  and  you  will  soon  find  yourself  standing  dumfounded 
before  your  own  mathematical  truths. 

Say  Salt  Lake  is  a  hundred  miles  long,  and  has  an  average  width  of  27 
miles  ;  that  gives  an  area  of  2,700  square  miles.  There  are  27,878,400 
square  feet  in  a  mile  ;  so  the  lake  has  an  area  of  75,271,680,000  square  feet. 
Take  20  feet  as  its  average  depth  ;  then  20  times  75,271,680,000  will  give 
us  1,505,433,600,000  cubic  feet  as  the  contents  of  the  lake.  Now  16^3 
per  cent.,  or  one-sixth  of  this,  according  to  the  analysis  of  eminent  chemists, 
is  salt  and  sulphate  of  soda. 

That  is,  the  lake  contains  250,905  600,000  cubic  feet  of  salt  and  sulphate 
of  soda.  Of  this  vast  mass  one  eighth  is  sulphate  of  soda  and  seven-eights 
common  salt.  So  there  are  of  Na  2  S.  O.  4,  or  sulphate  of  soda,  31.363,200,- 
ooo  cubic  feet  ;  and  of  Na  Cl.,  or  common  salt,  219.542,400,000  cubic  feet. 

80 


til 


•^ts^afeasaU  I  ~-^m 


These  figures  seem 
hardly    a    beginning. 
A  cubic  foot  of  sulphate 
and   a  cubic  foot  of  corn- 
have,  as  the  contents,  in  part, 
wealth,  1,568,160,000,000  pounds, 


astounding,  but  theyare 
Proceed    a    little  farther. 


of  soda  weighs  50  pounds, 
mon  salt,  80  pounds  ;  so  we 
of  this  unparalleled  reservoir  of 
or  784,080,000  tons  of  sulphate  of  soda; 
and  17,560,339,200,000  pounds,  or  8,780,169,600  tons  of  salt.  Allowing  ten 
tons  to  a  car-load,  that  would  be  78,408,000  cars  of  soda,  and  878,016,960 
cars  of  salt.  Taking  30  feet  as  the  total  length  of  a  freight  car  and  its 
couplings,  we  would  have  a  train  of  soda  445,500  miles  long,  or  nearly  to 
the  moon  and  back  ;  and  a  train  of  salt,  4,988,730  miles  in  length,  or  long 
enough  to  reach  196  times  around  the  earth,  and  leave  an  8,000  mile  string 
of  cars  over  on  a  side  track.  Running  20  miles  an  hour  and  never  stopping 
night  or  day,  it  would  take  the  salt-laden  train  28  years,  5  months  and  23 
days  to  pass  a  station. 

When  figures  mount,  as  these  do,  into  billions  and  trillions  they  become 
too  vast  for  any  careless  handling.  These  are,  thus  far,  correct  and  reason- 
able, though  almost  incomprehensible.  Carry  the  computation  one  step 

82 


more.  The  ordinary  valuation  of  sulphate  of  soda  is  one  cent  a  pound,  or 
$20  a  ton  ;  so  our  784,080,000  tons  of  it  would  be  worth,  in  the  markets  of 
the  world,  $15,681,600,000.  Common  salt  at  a  low  estimate,  is  worth  a  half 
cent,  a  pound,  or  $10  a  ton  ;  our  8,780,169,600  tons  of  it  would  consequently 
have  a  money  value  of  $87,801,696,000.  That  is  a  gigantic,  almost  incon- 
ceivable total  for  salt  and  soda,  of  $103,483,296,000  ;  or  enough,  in  two  in- 
gredients of  this  watery  wonder  of  the  new  world,  to  pay  all  the  national 
debts  in  Christendom,  and  leave  a  pretty  fair  fortune  for  every  man,  woman, 
child  and  other  person  in  the  hemispheric  republic  of  Yankeedoodledoo. 

The  entire  assessed  valuation  of  the  United  States,  including  real  estate 
and  personal  property,  under  the  census  of  1880,  was  $16,902,993,543  ;  so 
the  salt  and  soda  of  this  one  mountain-girt  lake  are  worth  more  than  six 
times  as  much  as  the  whole  forty-nine  states  and  territories  of  the  Union,  as 
shown  by  the  national  assessment  books  ten  years  ago.  Do  these  figures 
seem  astounding  ?  The  facts  are  astounding,  and  the  figures  but  do  them 
justice.  The  conclusions  are  inexorable,  and  the  figures,  though  over- 
whelming, are  absolutely  accurate  and  trustworthy.  But  cut  all  the  figures 
in  two,  halve  all  the  estimates,  and  we  would  still  have  a  sum  so  prodigious, 
that  all  the  arithmetic  classes  of  creation  would  stagger  before  it. 

Salt  Lake  is  as  entrancing  in  its  beauty,  as  it  is  amazing  in  its  material 
riches.  On  all  our  glorious  earth,  of  which  Paradise  was  once  a  part,  no 
more  picturesque  and  beautiful  body  of  water  flashes  back  from  its  mirror- 
like  bosom  the  dazzling  radiance  of  the  sunlight.  No  lovelier  lake  ripples 
its  melodious  love  song  to  the  gently  wooing  breeze  ;  and  no  grander  inland 
sea  thunders  its  billowy  fury  to  the  shores.  The  snow-capped  Wasatch 
mountains  wall  it  in  on  the  east  and  southeast  ;  the  giant  Oquirrhs  bathe 
their  feet  in  its  southern  margin  ;  the  great  salt  desert,  in  which  Bonneville's 
exploring  expedition  came  near  perishing  of  thirst  and  starvation,  in  1833, 
stretches  bare  and  desolate  from  its  western  shore,  and  the  wild  Promontory 
Range  plunges  boldly  into  its  waves  for  thirty  miles  on  the  north.  Between 
the  Wasatch  mountains  and  its  eastern  beach,  lies  the  garden-like  valley, 
while  fifteen  miles  away,  on  one  of  its  ancient  shelving  beaches,  Salt  Lake  City, 
with  domes  and  towers  half-hidden  in  semi-tropical  foliage,  nestles  at  the  feet 
of  the  glacier-crested  mountain  giants  ;  and  a  hundred  miles  to  the  southward 
rises  the  snowy  summit  of  Nebo  to  lend  a  far-off  grandeur  to  the  scene. 

The  tinting  of  the  water  reminds  one  of  the  iridescent  glories  of  the 
South  Caribbean  Sea.  Near  the  shores  it  is  an  exquisite  opaline  green, 
delicate  and  wavering.  Farther  out,  this  changes  into  a  blue  as  dazzling  as 
that  of  the  sapphire  skies  that  bend  lovingly  above  it  ;  and  this  gradually 
deepens  into  royal  purple,  which  darkens  and  lightens  at  every  touch  of  the 
dallying  breeze,  and  every  flitting  of  the  golden,  fleece-like  clouds  that  fleck 
the  lustrous  azure  of  the  heavens.  The  sunsets  are  insurpassable  in  glory 
in  all  the  grand  chariot-course  of  Phoebus  and  his  flaming  steeds.  Nature 

83 


Across  fte  j3reat  Salt  Lake, 
l^e  Ti\our[iains   don   t^eir  j^older^  crowr;; 
Tl]e  soariiijj  seagulls  circle  Touqd, 
billows  break. 


Ar]d  wljerj  I    scarj  what's  made  for  man, 
To  rriake  tyis  f|eaii  jrow  ^lad. 

woriderrr|er|t  rny  t]eart  1  KvV-K- 
feel --ftje  flusl^'of  sliarrj^s  l]o: 
Because  rriy  soul  is   sad. 


seems  to  empty  all  her  gorgeous  paint-pots  on  the  evening  sky,  and  the  day 
dies,  like  a  vast  aerial  dolphin,  in  a  conflagration  of  prismatic  splendors. 

>The  whole  lake  is  dotted  with  magnificently  picturesque  mountainous 
islands  or  islandous  mountains,  rising  out  of  the  blue-green  water  to  a  height 
of  from  three  to  five  thousand  feet.  The  principal  of  these  wave-washed 
mountain  beauty-spots  are  Antelope,  Stansbury,  Fremont,  Carrington,  Gun- 
nison,  Dolphin,  Mud,  Egg  and  Hat  islands.  Antelope  Island,  the  largest  of 
them  all,  is  sixteen  miles  long  and  five  miles  wide,  and  lies  in  plain  view  of 
Salt  Lake  City.  It  towers  to  an  altitude  of  about  four  thousand  feet  above 
the  surface  of  the  lake,  and  abounds  in  exquisite  scenery.  Streams  of  pure, 
sweet  water  tumble  down  its  mountain-sides  and  canyons  ;  rich  grasses 
flourish  everywhere,  and  it  is  beautified  by  groves  of  trees,  thrifty  ranches, 
orchards  and  gardens.  Vast  deposits  of  slate  of  iridescent  hues  are  found 
upon  it.  It  has  a  glorious,  gently-sloping  beach  of  snowy  sand,  and  will, 
beyond  all  question,  some  day  be  the  great  fashionable  bathing-place  of 
interior  North  America.  From  present  indications  it  will  not  be  long  until 
every  available  site  for  a  bathing-ground  on  the  eastern  shore  of  the  lake 
will  be  appropriated  and  improved.  In  1889,  there  were  240,000  bathers  at 
the  four  principal  resorts,  and  over  300,000  in  1890,  and  among  them  were 
tourists  from  every  region  of  the  globe.  Antelope  Island  is  an  ideal  spot  for 
a  grand  national  summer  assembly-place  ;  and  it  seems  hardly  probable  that 
the  enterprising  managers  of  the  Rio  Grande  Western  Railway  will  allow  it  to 
lie  much  longer  unimproved.  With  proper  buildings  and  accommodations, 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  visitors  could  be  annually  taken  to  enjoy  the 
bathing  and  boating  and  other  aquatic  sports  and  diversions  in  the  most 
interesting  and  enchanting  region  for  such  purposes  on  all  the  continent  — 
if  not  in  all  the  world. 

It  may  seem  preposterous  to  talk  of  the  finest  sea  bathing  on  earth  a 
thousand  miles  from  the  ocean  ;  but  truth  is  no  less  truth  because  it  appears 
absurd.  The  sea  bathing  in  Great  Salt  Lake  infinitely  surpasses  anything 
of  the  kind  on  either  the  Atlantic  or  Pacific  coasts.  The  water  contains 
many  times  more  salt  and  much  more  soda,  sulphur,  magnesia,  chlorine, 
bromine  and  potassium  than  any  ocean  water  on  the  globe.  It  is  powerful 
in  medicinal  virtues,  curing  or  benefiting  many  forms  of  rheumatism,  rheu- 
matic gout,  dyspepsia,  nervous  disorders  and  cutaneous  diseases  ;  and  it  acts 
like  magic  on  the  hair  of  those  unfortunates  whose  tendencies  are  to  bald- 
headedness.  It  is  a  prompt  and  potent  tonic  and  invigorant  of  body  and 
mind,  and  then  there  is  no  end  of  fun  in  getting  acquainted  with  its  pecu- 
liarities. A  first  bath  in  it  is  always  as  good  as  a  circus,  the  bather  being 
his  or  her  own  amusing  trick  mule.  The  specific  gravity  is  but  a  trifle  less 
than  that  of  the  Holy  Land  Dead  Sea,  the  actual  figures  with  distilled  water 
as  unity  being,  for  the  ocean  1.027,  for  Salt  Lake  1.107,  and  for  the  Dead 
Sea  1.116.  The  human  body  will  not  and  can  not  sink  in  it.  You  can  walk 

85 


out  in  it  where  it  is  fifty  feet  deep,  and  your  body  will  stick  up  out  of  it  like 
a  fishing  cork  from  the  shoulders  upward.  You  can  sit  down  in  it  perfectly 
secure  where  it  is  fathoms  deep.  Men  lie  on  top  of  it  with  their  arms 
crossed  under  their  heads  and  smoke  their  cigars.  Its  buoyancy  is  inde- 
scribable and  unimaginable.  Any  one  can  float  upon  it  at  the  first  trial ;  there 
is  nothing  to  do  but  lie  down  gently  upon  it  —  and  float.  But  swimming  is  an 
entirely  different  matter.  The  moment  you  begin  to  "  paddle  your  own 
canoe"  lively  and  —  to  the  lookers-on  —  mirth-provoking  exercises  ensue. 
When  you  stick  your  hands  under  to  make  a  stroke  your  feet  decline  to  stay 
anywhere  but  on  top  ;  and  when,  after  an  exciting  tussle  with  your  refractory 
pedal  extremities,  you  again  get  them  beneath  the  surface,  your  hands  fly  out 
with  the  splash  and  splutter  of  a  half-dozen  flutter  wheels.  If,  on  account  of 
your  brains  being  heavier  than  your  heels,  you  chance  to  turn  a  somerset 
and  your  head  goes  under,  your  heels  will  pop  up  like  a  pair  of  frisky  didapper 
ducks.  You  can  not  keep  more  than  one  end  of  yourself  under  water  at 
once,  but  you  soon  learn  how  to  wrestle  with  its  novelties  and  then  it 
becomes  "  a  thing  of  beauty"  and  a  joy  for  any  summer  day.  The  water  is 
delightful  to  the  skin,  every  sensation  is  exhilarating,  and  one  can  not  help 
feeling  in  it  like  a  gilded  cork  adrift  in  a  jewel-rimmed  bowl  of  champagne 
punch.  In  the  sense  of  luxurious  ease  with  which  it  envelops  the  bather  it 
is  unrivaled  on  earth.  The  only  approximation  to  it  is  in  the  phosphores- 
cent waters  of  the  Mosquito  Indian  coast.  The  water  does  not  freeze  until 
the  thermometric  mercury  tumbles  down  to  eighteen  degrees  above  zero,  or 
fourteen  below  the  ordinary  freezing  point.  It  is  as  clear  as  crystal,  with  a 
bottom  of  snow-white  sand,  and  small  objects  can  be  distinctly  seen  at  a 
depth  of  twenty  feet.  There  is  not  a  fish  or  any  other  living  thing  in  all 
the  twenty-five  hundred  or  three  thousand  square  miles  of  beautiful  and 
mysterious  waters,  except  the  yearly  increasing  swarms  of  summer  bathers. 
Not  a  shark  or  a  stingaree  to  scare  the  timid  swimmer  or  floater,  not  a  crab 
or  a  crawfish  to  nip  the  toe  of  the  nervous  wader,  not  a  minnow  or  a  frog,  a 
tadpole  or  a  pollywog  —  nothing  that  lives,  moves,  swims,  crawls  or  wiggles. 
It  is  the  ideal  sea-bathing  place  of  the  world. 


86 


XII 


SALT    LAKE   CITY. 


THE     INTER-MOUNTAIN     METROPOLIS  —  A    CITY    OF     GREAT 
BEAUTY    AND    INFINITE   POSSIBILITIES. 


IFTEEN  miles  from  the  southeastern  shore  of  this  inland 
Sea  of  Wonders,  embowered  in  shade  and  shubbery,  and  recall- 
ing glorious  pictures  of  the  Orient,  is  Salt  Lake  City,  the  capi- 
tal and  metropolis  of  Utah,  the  sacred  Zion  of  the  Latter  Day 
Saints,  the  royal  city  of  the  Mormon  kingdom  and  hierarchy. 
In  situation  and  surroundings  it  is  incomparably  the  most 
picturesque  and  beautiful  city  in  the  United  States.  It  sits 
enthroned,  like  a  queen  of  the  mountains  and  valleys,  upon  an  ancient 
keacn  of  the  great  lake,  about  a  hundred  feet  above  the  present  level 
of  its  waters,  and  4,350  feet  above  the  sea.  On  the  east  the  giant 
Wasatch  mountains,  with  their  crowns  of  everlasting  snow,  towering  from 
six  to  eight  thousand  feet  above  it,  form  a  background  unsurpassed  in 
grandeur.  To  the  west  and  northwest,  gleaming  and  glistening  like  a 
mighty  mirror  in  the  sunshine,  which  is  undimmed  three  hundred  and  fifteen 
days  of  every  year,  lies  the  American  Dead  Sea,  with  the  Oquirrh  moun- 
tains dabbling  their  golden  feet  in  its  southern  brirn.  Northward  and 
southward  as  far  as  the  eye  can  reach  stretches  the  Edenlike  valley,  in 
an  unbroken  vista  of  fields  and  meadows,  orchards,  vineyards,  pastures  and 
gardens  —  a  boundless  glory  of  trees,  foliage,  fruits  and  flowers;  through 
which  the  Jordan,  like  a  silver  thread,  winds  its  way  to  lose  itself  in 
the  unfathomed  mystery  of  a  lake  that  has  many  inlets  but  no  outlet. 

The  city  was  originally  settled  by  the  Mormons  under  Brigham  Young, 
in  July,  1847,  and  it  abounds  in  monuments  and  mementoes  of  these  strange 
people.  They  laid  out  the  original  city  in  squares,  six  hundred  and  sixty- 
six  and  two-thirds  feet  in  length  ;  each  square  containing  ten  acres.  The 
streets  are  a  hundred  and  thirty-two  feet  wide,  and  every  street  is  shaded 
by  grand  old  long-armed  trees,  many  of  them  fruit  and  flower-bearing. 
Along  both  sides  of  every  street  flow  streams  of  sparkling  mountain  water. 

87 


Every  house  in  the  city  is  surrounded  by  green  lawns,  gardens  and  orchards, 
so  that  one  looks  in  vain  for  a  poor  man's  home.  The  humblest  adobe 
cottage,  half  hidden  in  trees,  fruit  and  flowers,  becomes  a  thing  of  beauty. 
In  fact,  the  emblem  of  Mormonism  was  a  Bee  Hive,  and  every  man, 
woman  and  child  had  to  work  at  something.  Everybody  was  a  pro- 
ducer. No  drones  were  tolerated,  and  there  were  no  loafers,  tramps  or 
beggars.  The  whole  city  was  abloom  with  industry  and  thrift.  BgfflCTOft 
Only  within  the  last  three  or  four  years  has  the  spirit  of  modern  Gentile 
progress  struck  this  quaintest,  most  beautiful  and  most  interesting  of  North 
American  cities.  Its  population  rose  from  20,678  in  1880,  to  46,259  in  1890, 
and  it  is  now  between  50,000  and  55,000.  The  assessed  value  of  property 
sprang  from  $16,611,752  in  1889  to  $54,353,740  in  1890  ;  an  increase  of  227 
per  cent,  in  a  single  year.  As  the  assessment  is  on  a  basis  of  one-fifth  to 
one-fourth  of  actual  valuation,  the  true  value  of  real  estate  and  personal 
property  in  the  city  is  over  $200,000,000  ;  but  put  it  at  only  double  the 
assessor's  figures,  and  it  amounts  to  $108,707,480,  which,  in  a  place  of  50,000 
population,  is  an  average  of  more  than  $2,000  for  every  inhabitant,  within 
its  municipal  limits.  This  has  no  parallel  in  any  other  American  city,  if  it 
has  in  the  world.  Seven  new  banks  were  founded  during  1890,  making  six- 
teen in  the  city,  with  an  aggregate  capital  and  surplus  of  $4,853,000,  and 
deposits  amounting  to  $8,225,000  ;  an  increase,  in  a  year,  of  over  300  per 
cent,  in  capital,  and  nearly  100  per  cent,  in  deposits.  Out  of  sixty-four 
cities  in  the  United  States  having  clearing-houses,  Salt  Lake  City  out- 
ranks thirty-one,  including  Washington  City,  the  National  Capital,  with  its 
200,000  population,  and  the  whole  Government  and  Treasury  Department 
thrown  in  to  boot.  The  amount  invested  in  new  buildings  and  additions  to 
old  ones,  in  1890,  was  $6,226,000  ;  in  public  works  $549,000  ;  and  in  street 
railways  $540,000  ;  making  a  grand  total  of  $7,315,000  in  these  three 
items  of  improvement.  The  city  has  sixty-five  miles  of  electric  street 
railways ;  a  hundred  miles  of  admirable  streets  and 
drives  ;  twenty  miles  of  twenty-foot  sidewalks  ;  superb 
gas  and  electric  lighting  systems  ;  an  inexhaustible 
supply  of  pure  mountain-stream  water  ;  over  two  hun- 
dred prospering  manufactories  ;  twenty-three  public 
and  fifteen  private  schools,  and  as  handsome  school- 
houses  as  any  in  the  country  ;  the  Territorial  Univer- 
sity, deaf  and  dumb  institute,  normal  institute  and 
woman's  home  ;  thirty-five  churches  of  all  denomina- 
tions, Catholic,  Protestant,  Hebrew  and  Mormon,  in- 
cluding the  great  Temple  and  Tabernacle ;  three 
excellent  hospitals  ;  thirty  benevolent  societies  ;  four 
live  daily  papers,  and  twelve  or  fifteen  weeklies,  semi- 
monthlies and  monthlies,  including  one  German  and 

89 


one  Scandinavian  publication;  six  public  libraries;  two  of  the  finest  theatres 
in  the  west;  a  hundred  and  fifty  acres  in  parks;  some  of  the  largest  mercan- 
tile houses  between  the  Mississippi  River  and  the  Pacific  Ocean  ;  six  rail- 
roads, with  over  sixty  passenger  trains  daily  ;  health  and  pleasure  resorts 
unsurpassed  on  earth  ;  a  climate  as  nearly  perfect  as  any  place  in  the  tem- 
perate zone  ;  as  charming  and  cultivated  society  as  can  be  found  anywhere  ; 
more  beautiful  homes  and  fewer  shabby  ones  than  any  other  city  of  its  size 
in  the  Union,  and  more  curious  and  interesting  things  than  any  other  place  of 
five  times  its  size  in  North  America. 

It  is  the  best  amusement-patronizing  city  of  its  population  in  the  world. 
Mapleson,  Abbey,  Daly,  Frohman,  Palmer,  Theodore  Thomas,  and  all  first- 
class  stars  and  companies  crossing  the  continent,  gather  large  and  magnificent 
audiences  in  Salt  Lake  City. 

The  theatre,  built  under  the  auspices  of  Brigham  Young,  seats  eighteen 
hundred  people,  and  the  new  opera-house  fourteen  hundred,  and  both  are 
equipped  with  all  modern  improvements  and  conveniences.  When  these 
are  inadequate  to  accommodate  the  crowds,  the  Mormon  authorities  are 
always  obliging  and  polite  in  allowing  their  vast  Tabernacle  to  be  used  ; 
so  it  has  echoed  the  divine  cadenzas  of  nearly  every  famous  cantatrice 
and  impressario  of  recent  years. 

There  are  more  first-class  hotels  in  Salt  Lake  City  than  in  St.  Louis  or 
Cincinnati.  The  Knutsford,  with  three  hundred  rooms,  vies  in  elegance 
with  the  best  in  the  country  ;  and  the  million-dollar  Ontario,  named  for  the 
great  Utah  bonanza  mine,  will,  when  completed,  rank  with  the  most  famous 
hostelries  of  the  world.  The  Walker  House,  The  Cullen,  The  Templeton, 
The  Cliff,  and  The  Union  Pacific  are  all  handsome  and  admirably  kept; 
and  there  are  a  dozen  other  houses  of  about  the  grade  of  The  Laclede 
in  St.  Louis,  The  Sherman  in  Chicago,  and  The  Gibson  in  Cincinnati.  The 
Walker  House  abounds  in  historic  memories  and  associations.  Its  hospitable 
roof  has  sheltered  thousands  of  noted  people,  including  Dom  Pedro,  Kala- 
kaua,  Grant,  Sherman,  Patti,  .Garfield,  Edmunds  and  Harrison  ;  and  dukes,, 
earls,  counts,'  barons  and  other  imported  titular  celebrities  without  number. 

Many  of  the  churches  are  handsome  and  stately  edifices  ;  the  school 
buildings  and  hospitals  would  be  creditable  in  any  city  of  a  quarter  of  a 
million  people.  There  is  no  city  of  its  size  in  the  United  States  where  the 
homes  are  so  universally  tasteful  ;  and  shade-trees,  lawns,  fountains,  fruit 
and  flowers  are  so  abundant  everywhere,  that  a  bird's-eye  view  from  Pros- 
pect Hill,  or  any  of  the  lofty  mountain-benches,  gives  a  picture  of  a  vast  semi- 
tropical  garden.  It  is  strangely  Oriental,  and  vividly  suggestive  of  Mahom- 
et's reason  for  refusing  to  enter  Damascus  the  Beautiful  —  "It  is  given  unto 
man  but  once  to  enter  Paradise,  and  I  will  not  go  into  mine  on  earth." 

The  Temple  Block  stands  first  among  the  things  that  must  be  seen.  It 
is  a  ten-acre  square,  surrounded  by  a  massive  wall  fifteen  feet  high  and  five 

90 


feet  thick.  In  it  stands  the  magnificent  Mormon  Temple,  the  Tabernacle 
and  the  Assembly  Hall.  The  Temple  is,  with  the  single  exception  of  St. 
Patrick's  Cathedral  in  New  York,  the  grandest  and  costliest  ecclesiastical 
structure  in  the  country.  It  was  begun  in  1853,  and  completed  in  1894,  and 
cost  nearly  $6,000,000.  It  is  two  hundred  feet  long,  a  hundred  feet  wide, 
and  a  hundred  feet  high,  with  four  towers,  one  at  each  corner,  two  hundred 
and  twenty  feet  in  height.  The  walls  are  ten  feet  thick,  and  the  massive- 
ness  and  solidity  of  its  construction  insure  its  defiance  of  the  ravages  of  time 
for  ages  to  come.  It  is  built  wholly  of  snow-white  granite  from  the  Cotton- 
wood  Canyon  ;  and,  standing  on  one  of  the  loftiest  points  in  the  city,  it  can 
be  seen  for  fifty  miles  up  and  down  the  valley. 

The  Tabernacle,  which  is  just  west  of  the  Temple  in  the  same  square,  is 
one  of  the  architectural  curios  of  the  world.  It  looks  like  a  vast  terrapin- 
back,  or  half  of  a  prodigious  egg-shell  cut  in  two  lengthwise,  and  is  built 
wholly  of  iron,  glass  and  stone.  It  is  two  hundred  and  fifty  feet  long,  a  hun- 
dred and  fifty  feet  wide,  and  a  hundred  feet  high  in  the  center  of  the  roof, 
which  is  a  single  mighty  arch,  unsupported  by  pillar  or  post,  and  is  said  to 
have  but  one  counterpart  on  the  globe.  The  walls  are  twelve  feet  thick,  and 
there  are  twenty  huge  double  doors  for  entrance  and  exit.  The  Tabernacle 
seats  13,462  people,  and  its  acoustic  properties  are  so  marvelously  perfect 
that  a  whisper  or  the  dropping  of  a  pin  can  be  heard  all  over  it.  The  organ 
is  one  of  the  largest  and  grandest-toned  in  existence,  and  was  built  here  of 
native  woods,  by  Mormon  workmen  and  artists,  at  a  cost  of  $100,000.  It  is 
fifty-eight  feet  high,  has  fifty-seven  stops,  and  contains  two  thousand  six 
hundred  and  forty-eight  pipes,  some  of  them  nearly  as  large  as  the  chimneys 
of  a  Mississippi  River  steamboat.  The  choir  consists  of  from  two  hundred 
to  five  hundred  trained  voices,  and  the  music  is  glorious  beyond  description. 
Much  of  it  is  in  minor  keys,  and  a  strain  of  plaintiveness  mingles  with  all  its 
majesty  and  power.  All  the  seats  are  free,  and  tourists  from  all  parts  of 
the  world  are  to  be  found  among  the  vast  multitude  that  assembles  at  every 
service.  Think  of  seeing  the  holy  communion — broken  bread,  and  water 
from  the  Jordan  River  instead  of  wine  —  administered  to  from  six  to  eight 
thousand  communicants  at  one  time  !  And  fancy  the  old-time  Mormon 
apostles,  bishops,  elders  and  warriors,  marching  in  with  from  five  to  twenty 
wives,  and  from  twenty-five  to  seventy-five  children  apiece  ! 

Assembly  Hall  is  of  white  granite,  of  Gothic  architecture,  and  has  seats  for 
twenty-five  hundred.  The  ceiling  is  elaborately  frescoed  with  scenes  from 
Mormon  history,  including  the  delivery  of  the  golden  plates,  containing  the 
New  Revelation,  to  the  Prophet  Joseph  Smith,  by  the  Angel  Moroni.  The 
Hall  contains  a  superb  organ  of  native  woods,  and  home  workmanship. 

Just  east  of  Temple  Block  is  another  walled  square,  containing  the  Mor- 
mon Tithing-House  and  printing-office,  and  Brigham  Young's  extensive 
residence,  including  the  famous  Lion  House  and  Bee-Hive  House,  where 

92 


eighteen  of  his  wives  lived.  Across  the  street  to  the  east  is  the  school-house 
of  his  seventy-eight  children,  which  would  be  a  very  pretty  chapel  in  an 
eastern  town.  Across  the  street,  south  of  the  Lion  and  Bee-Hive  houses,  is 
the  superb  Amelia  Palace,  which  he  built  for  his  nineteenth  wife,  Amelia 
Folsom,  who  was  a  cousin  of  Mrs.  Grover  Cleveland.  A  block  above,  on 
the  brow  of  the  hill,  is  Brigham's  grave,  and  his  private  graveyard,  where  all 
his  wives,  with  perhaps  one  exception,  will  ultimately  be  buried  around  him, 
in  the  order  of  their  marriages,  or  "  sealings  "  to  him  ;  the  first  one  nearest 
to  him,  and  so  on,  to  the  latest  and  farthest. 

The  great  Zion  Cooperative  Mercantile  Institution,  or  Mormon  store, 
is  one  of  the  sights  of  the  city.  It  has  several  acres  of  floor-room  ;  carries 
on  extensive  and  various  manufacturing  operations  ;  and  sells  and  handles 
everything  from  a  steam-engine  and  a  forty  horse-power  threshing-machine 
to  a  lady's  watch  and  a  Parisian  trousseau  ;  from  a  patent  hay-rake  or  a 
hogshead  of  sugar,  to  a  baby-wagon,  a  box  of  bon-bons,  or  the  latest  agony 
in  millinery,  scarfs  and  dress  patterns.  Its  business  runs  from  $4,000,000 
to  $6,000,000  a  year. 

Salt  Lake  City  has  the  model  post-office  of  the  United  States.  When 
President  Harrison  and  his  party  visited  the  city  in  the  early  part  of  1891, 
Postmaster-General  Wanamaker  was  so  pleased  with  the  perfection  of  all  its 
arrangements  that  he  requested  photographs  of  every  department  of  it  sent 
to  Washington,  to  be  used  as  patterns  for  other  offices.  Postmaster  Benton, 
to  whom  the  credit  of  its  admirable  features  belongs,  was  formerly  a  trusted 
agent  of  the  Rio  Grande  Western  Railway,  and  consequently  received  his 
training  in  a  first-class  school  of  efficiency. 

The  Chamber  of  Commerce  Building  is  a  handsome  four-story  structure 
of  stone  and  brick,  and  contains  an  extensive  and  valuable  library,  and  a 
wonderful  collection  of  Utah  products  —  agricultural,  mineral,  pastoral  and 
textile.  Offices  of  the  Traffic,  Accounting  and  Financial  Departments  of 
the  Rio  Grande  Western  Railway  occupy  two  floors  of  the  block. 

The  Deseret  Museum  is  well  worth  a  visit,  having  a  vast  number  of  curious 
and  interesting  things  on  exhibition  —  Utah  beasts,  birds,  reptiles,  insects, 
minerals,  gems,  fruits,  flowers,  freaks  and  queeriosities.  Fort  Douglas,  a  full 
regimental  post,  on  a  high  mountain  bench  or  plateau  just  east  of  the  city, 
is  one  of  the  most  picturesque  in  all  the  dominions  of  Uncle  Samuel,  It 
commands  as  glorious  a  view  as  lies  out  of  doors. 

Salt  Lake  City  is  surrounded  by  lovely  pleasure-grounds  and  unsurpassable 
health-resorts.  The  mountains  and  canyons  afford  an  endlessly  varied  field 
for  summer-tourist  recreation  ;  and  medicated  waters,  potent  in  healing 
virtues,  gush  forth  in  a  hundred  places.  The  most  famous  of  these  are  the 
Warm  Springs,  within  the  city  limits,  and  the  Hot  Springs,  about  four 
miles  out  both  on  electric  street-car  lines.  The  water  of  Hot  Springs 
has  a  temperature  of  128°,  and  the  flow  is  over  20,000  gallons  an  hour.  It 

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possesses  all  the  efficacy  of  the  Arkansas  Hot  Springs  water,  and  is  a  sover- 
eign remedy  in  all  ordinary  cases  of  rheumatism,  rheumatic  gout,  scrofulous 
diseases,  mineral  poisoning,  ulcers,  abscesses  and  cutaneous  eruptions  of 
nearly  every  sort.  Thousands  of  cures  have  been  wrought  here  ;  some  of 
them  seemingly  almost  miraculous.  The  water  of  the  Warm  Springs,  with  a 
temperature  of  103°,  is  piped  into  a  superb  natatorium  in  the  heart  of  the 
city;  and  it  is  but  a  question  of  time  —  and  a  short  time  at  that  —  when  the 
waters  of  the  Hot  Springs  and  of  the  Great  Salt  Lake  will  be  rendered 
equally  convenient  to  the  city  bather.  The  invalid  here  has  the  advantage 
of  a  climate  that  is  as  nearly  perfect  as  can  be  found;  dry,  bracing,  com- 
bining the  salt  air  of  the  sea  with  the  pure  and  rarified  air  of  the  moun- 
tains ;  where  the  sun  shines  nearly  every  day  in  the  year  ;  where  there  is 
no  fog,  miasma,  or  malaria,  and  where  the  blizzards  and  sand-storms  that 
afflict  other  health-resort  regions  are  unknown. 

Salt  Lake  City  has  profitable  openings  for  nearly  every  variety  of  indus- 
trial enterprises,  and  for  a  constantly  increasing  number  of  wholesale  and 
retail  mercantile  houses.  Situated  almost  exactly  midway  between  Denver 
and  San  Francisco,  the  city  has  tributary  to  it  a  grand  and  growing  empire, 
rich  in  all  materials  of  commerce.  With  its  long  arms  of  railway  rapidly 
reaching  out  north,  south,  east  and  west,  into  Idaho,  Nevada,  Arizona, 
New  Mexico,  and  Southern  Colorado,  it  is  destined  to  become  the  undis- 
puted Metropolis  of  the  vast  Inter-Mountain  Realm. 


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